CVE-2013-4132
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 · uneditedKDE-Workspace 4.10.5 and earlier does not properly handle the return value of the glibc 2.17 crypt and pw_encrypt functions, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and crash) via (1) an invalid salt or a (2) DES or (3) MD5 encrypted password, when FIPS-140 is enable, to KDM or an (4) invalid password to KCheckPass.
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 confidenceKDE-Workspace 4.10.5 and earlier fails to check the return value from glibc 2.17's crypt() and pw_encrypt() functions. When these functions encounter invalid salts, DES/MD5 encrypted passwords in FIPS-140 mode, or certain error conditions, they return NULL. The code then attempts to use this NULL pointer, causing a denial of service via NULL pointer dereference and crash in KDM (KDE Display Manager) and KCheckPass.
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<= 4.10.5<= 4.10.5= 12.2CVSS 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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Identify installed KDE-Workspace or KDE-SC versionRun 'rpm -qa | grep -E "kde-workspace|kdebase4"' on openSUSE or check your package manager for kde-workspace or kdebase packagesAffected if The installed version is 4.10.5 or earlier
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Determine if KDM is the active display managerCheck the display manager configuration: look at /etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc or run 'systemctl display-manager' or check /etc/inittab for runlevel 5Affected if KDM (KDE Display Manager) is being used as the login manager
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Check if FIPS-140 mode is enabledRun 'cat /proc/sys/crypto/fips_enabled' - a value of 1 indicates FIPS-140 mode is activeAffected if FIPS-140 mode is enabled (value is 1)
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Identify password encryption methods in useCheck /etc/shadow or password configuration files to see if DES or MD5 hash methods are configured for user passwordsAffected if User passwords are encrypted using DES or MD5 algorithms
You are affected if running KDE-Workspace or KDE-SC version 4.10.5 or earlier, using KDM as the display manager, in an environment where crypt() can return NULL (FIPS-140 mode or with DES/MD5 password hashes).
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 KDE-Workspace version after 4.10.5, or patch the code to properly validate the return value from crypt() and pw_encrypt() before dereferencing. For FIPS-140 environments, ensure only approved algorithms are used.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2013-4132 — 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-2013-4132 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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