X11r6Application · Xfree86 Project

CVE-2004-0083

HIGH · 10.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2004-03-03
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Buffer overflow in ReadFontAlias from dirfile.c of XFree86 4.1.0 through 4.3.0 allows local users and remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a font alias file (font.alias) with a long token, a different vulnerability than CVE-2004-0084 and CVE-2004-0106.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
X11r6Application
Affected:= 4.1.0= 4.1.11= 4.1.12= 4.2.0= 4.2.1= 4.3.0
OpenBSDOperating system
Affected:= 3.3= 3.4

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Complete
Integrity
Complete
Availability
Complete

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Recommended fix Moderate confidence

X.org X11R6.7 or later (for XFree86 users); OpenBSD 3.5 or later (for OpenBSD users)

  1. For XFree86: Upgrade to X.org X11R6.7 or later, which is the successor project that includes security fixes from XFree86 4.3.0
  2. For OpenBSD: Upgrade to OpenBSD 3.5 or later, which includes the patched version of XFree86
  3. After upgrading, verify the X server starts successfully and test font rendering functionality
  4. If upgrading is not immediately possible, remove or restrict access to font.alias files in font directories and ensure the X server runs with minimal privileges
Caveat X.org is the maintained fork of XFree86 - should be compatible but some configuration differences may exist

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

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Free · runs locally
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2004-0083 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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