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PerlApplication

CVE-2008-1927

MEDIUM · 5.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2008-04-24
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
59/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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
Double free vulnerability in Perl 5.8.8 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and crash) via a crafted regular expression containing UTF8 characters. NOTE: this issue might only be present on certain operating systems.

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 · moderate confidence

A double free vulnerability in Perl 5.8.8 allows context-dependent attackers to cause denial of service via crafted regular expressions containing UTF8 characters, leading to memory corruption and crash.

MitigationUpgrade Perl to a patched version (5.8.8+ or preferably a later stable release) and validate that existing regex-dependent scripts function correctly after the update.

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
PerlApplication
Affected:= 5.8.8

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
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Partial

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

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify the installed Perl version
    Run 'perl -v' or 'perl --version' to display version information
    Affected if The reported version is exactly 5.8.8 (any patch level)
  2. Confirm UTF8 support is present
    Run 'perl -e "use Encode; print $Encode::VERSION"' to verify the Encode module (which provides UTF8 handling) is available
    Affected if Encode module loads successfully, indicating UTF8 functionality is enabled in this Perl installation
  3. Check for active UTF8 locale settings
    Run 'locale -a | grep -i utf' to list available UTF8 locales, or check environment variables LANG/LC_ALL for UTF8 settings
    Affected if UTF8 locales are configured and scripts/processes may process non-ASCII character data
  4. Audit scripts using regex patterns
    Review Perl scripts for regex operations (m//, s///, qr//) that process external input or files potentially containing non-ASCII characters
    Affected if Scripts process regex on data that could contain UTF8-encoded characters

You are affected if Perl version is exactly 5.8.8 AND your environment processes regular expressions on UTF8-encoded data or international character content.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Upgrade Perl to a patched version (5.8.8+ or preferably a later stable release) and validate that existing regex-dependent scripts function correctly after the update.

Fix this in Perl Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
12.0 hours of engineering $2,080
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Scan for this in your stack

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-2008-1927 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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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
  • 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