CVE-2015-5883
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 · uneditedThe bidirectional text-display and text-selection implementations in Terminal in Apple OS X before 10.11 interpret directional override formatting characters differently, which allows remote attackers to spoof the content of a text document via a crafted character sequence.
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 confidenceTerminal in Apple OS X before 10.11 has improper handling of Unicode bidirectional text override characters (such as right-to-left or left-to-right marks). This allows an attacker to craft character sequences where the displayed text differs from the actual underlying text content, enabling spoofing of file paths, commands, or other text displayed to users.
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<= 10.10.5CVSS 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
- Partial
- Availability
- None
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N
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 installed OS X versionOpen System Preferences > About or run the command 'sw_vers' in Terminal to display the system version numberAffected if The version displayed is 10.10.5 or earlier (10.10, 10.9, 10.8, etc.)
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Confirm Terminal application is in useIdentify whether users in your environment use the built-in Terminal.app for command-line operationsAffected if Terminal.app is actively used on an affected OS version
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Verify bidirectional text handling behaviorWhen pasting text into Terminal, inspect if pasted content contains right-to-left (RTL) or left-to-right (LTR) Unicode override characters (U+202E, U+202D) - the displayed text may differ from the actual underlying character sequenceAffected if Pasted text displays a file path, command, or argument that differs from the actual characters in the clipboard
If the system runs OS X 10.10.5 or earlier and uses Terminal.app, the environment is affected by the Unicode bidirectional text spoofing vulnerability.
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 OS X El Capitan (10.11) or later, which contains Apple's fix for proper bidirectional text rendering. Alternatively, avoid pasting or executing commands from untrusted sources in Terminal.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing1.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2015-5883 — 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-2015-5883 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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