CVE-2008-7191
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 · uneditedUnspecified vulnerability in Polipo before 1.0.4 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a long request URL.
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 confidencePolipo before version 1.0.4 contains an unspecified vulnerability that allows remote attackers to crash the proxy service by sending a specially crafted long request URL, resulting in a denial of service.
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<= 1.0.3= 0.1= 0.2= 0.3= 0.4= 0.5= 0.6= 0.7= 0.8= 0.8.1= 0.8.2= 0.8.3CVSS 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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check if Polipo is installed and identify its versionRun 'polipo -v' or 'polipo --version' to display the version information. On Linux systems, you can also check using package managers: 'dpkg -l polipo' or 'rpm -qa polipo'. If Polipo is running as a service, check the process with 'ps aux | grep polipo' and then query the running service for version details.Affected if The version displayed is 1.0.3 or earlier, or any of these versions: 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.8.1, 0.8.2, 0.8.3.
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Verify the Polipo service is running and listening on network portsRun 'netstat -tlnp | grep polipo' or 'ss -tlnp | grep polipo' to see which network interfaces and ports Polipo is bound to. Check the configuration file (typically /etc/polipo/config or ~/.polipo) for the 'proxyAddress' setting to determine if it is listening on external interfaces.Affected if Polipo is bound to a publicly accessible IP address (0.0.0.0 or a public IP) rather than only localhost (127.0.0.1), making it reachable by remote attackers.
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Confirm proxy functionality is enabledCheck the Polipo configuration file for 'enabled = true' or the absence of 'disabled = true'. Verify the proxy service is actively handling requests by reviewing active connections with 'netstat -an | grep <polipo_port>' or checking logs for recent proxy activity.Affected if The Polipo proxy service is actively running and processing requests, as the vulnerability is triggered by receiving specially crafted long request URLs.
Your environment is affected if Polipo version 1.0.3 or earlier is installed and the proxy service is running and accessible to remote attackers on a network interface.
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 Polipo to version 1.0.4 or later to remediate this vulnerability.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,376.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2008-7191 — 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-2008-7191 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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- 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
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