CVE-2015-8395
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 · uneditedPCRE before 8.38 mishandles certain references, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted regular expression, as demonstrated by a JavaScript RegExp object encountered by Konqueror, a related issue to CVE-2015-8384 and CVE-2015-8392.
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 confidencePCRE library before version 8.38 contains a flaw in handling certain backreferences in regular expressions. A remote attacker can craft a malicious regex (as demonstrated via JavaScript RegExp in Konqueror) to trigger the flaw, causing denial of service or potentially other unspecified impact. This is related to CVE-2015-8384 and CVE-2015-8392.
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<= 8.37CVSS 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
- Partial
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/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 PCRE library version via pcre-configRun `pcre-config --version` or `pcre-config --modversion` to retrieve the installed PCRE library versionAffected if Version returned is 8.37 or lower (e.g., 8.36, 8.35, etc.)
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Check PCRE via package managerOn Debian/Ubuntu run `dpkg -l | grep pcre`, on RHEL/CentOS run `rpm -qa | grep pcre`, or check the installed package version directlyAffected if Package version listed is 8.37 or lower
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Check pcregrep versionRun `pcregrep --version` to see the version of the pcregrep utility if installedAffected if Version is 8.37 or lower
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Check libpcre shared libraryRun `ldconfig -p | grep pcre` to locate the PCRE library file, then use `strings` or examine the file name for version info, or use `readelf -V` on the libraryAffected if The library file indicates version 8.37 or lower in its metadata
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Identify applications using PCRERun `ldd <executable>` on suspected applications or check their dependencies with `obj -x` or package tools to see if they link against libpcreAffected if Any application linked against PCRE version 8.37 or lower is potentially affected when processing user-supplied regex patterns
The environment is affected if PCRE version 8.37 or lower is installed and any application processes regular expressions, especially those containing backreferences, with untrusted input.
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 PCRE to version 8.38 or later to resolve the backreference handling vulnerability. Applications using PCRE should be tested to ensure regex functionality remains correct after the upgrade.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,072.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2015-8395 — 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-2015-8395 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
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