GtkApplication · Gnome

CVE-2012-0828

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2020-02-21
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2.8.6 / 1499-4 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
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
Heap-based buffer overflow in Xchat-WDK before 1499-4 (2012-01-18) xchat 2.8.6 on Maemo architecture could allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (xchat client crash) or execute arbitrary code via a UTF-8 line from server containing characters outside of the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP).

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
How this class of weakness works · CWE-787

The program writes past the bounds of a buffer, overwriting adjacent memory an attacker can turn to their advantage. Crafted input can overwrite control data and redirect execution. Remediation is validating every index and length before a write, plus modern memory-safety mitigations.

General guidance for the out-of-bounds write class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

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
GtkApplication
Affected:= 2.10.4= 2.14.7= 2.18.9= 2.24.7
XchatApplication
Affected:< 2.8.6
Xchat WdkApplication
Affected:< 1499-4

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
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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
Upgrade available Upgrade to 2.8.6 / 1499-4 or later
Fixed in 2.8.61499-4
Recommended fix High confidence

Xchat 2.8.6 or Xchat-WDK 1499-4

  1. 1. Identify the installed version of Xchat or Xchat-WDK by running 'xchat --version' or checking the package manager
  2. 2. For systems with Xchat < 2.8.6: Update to Xchat version 2.8.6 or later using the system package manager (e.g., 'yum update xchat' or 'apt-get install xchat')
  3. 3. For systems with Xchat-WDK < 1499-4: Update to Xchat-WDK version 1499-4 or later
  4. 4. Verify the update was successful by checking the new version number
  5. 5. Restart the Xchat client if it was running during the update
  6. 6. Test that the client connects to servers and handles UTF-8 messages correctly

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

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $3,550. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

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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-2012-0828 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