CVE-2006-5084
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 · uneditedFormat string vulnerability in the NSRunAlertPanel function in eBay Skype for Mac 1.5.*.79 and earlier allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) and possibly execute arbitrary code via a malformed Skype URL, as originally reported to involve a null dereference.
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 · high confidenceFormat string vulnerability in the NSRunAlertPanel function of eBay Skype for Mac 1.5.*.79 and earlier allows remote attackers to cause denial of service and possibly execute arbitrary code via malformed Skype URLs. The vulnerability stems from improper handling of user-controlled input passed as a format string.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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<= 1.5.0.79CVSS 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
- Partial
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify if Skype is installed on the Mac systemCheck for the presence of the Skype application in /Applications or the user's application folder, or query using system_profiler SPApplicationsDataTypeAffected if Skype application exists on the system
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Determine the installed Skype versionUse the Finder Get Info window on the Skype application, or run 'mdls' on the application bundle to read the kCFBundleVersionKey metadata, or check /Applications/Skype.app/Contents/Info.plist for CFBundleVersionAffected if The installed version cannot be determined or is 1.5.0.79 or earlier
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Compare the installed version to the affected rangeReview the version number obtained from the application bundle or Info.plist and compare to 1.5.0.79Affected if The installed version is 1.5.0.79 or any earlier version (such as 1.5.0.x where x is less than 79, or any 1.4.x version)
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Confirm the vulnerable component is presentThe vulnerability is in the NSRunAlertPanel function which processes Skype URLs - this component is present in all versions 1.5.0.79 and earlierAffected if The version check confirms 1.5.0.79 or earlier, meaning the vulnerable code path exists in the installed build
A user is affected if Skype is installed and the version number is 1.5.0.79 or any earlier version in the 1.5.x or 1.4.x family.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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.
From vendor dataUpgrade to a supported version of Skype; the affected product (Skype 1.5 for Mac) is obsolete and no longer receives security patches.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2006-5084 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2006-5084 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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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.
- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data