CVE-2015-8978
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 · uneditedIn Soap Lite (aka the SOAP::Lite extension for Perl) 1.14 and earlier, an example attack consists of defining 10 or more XML entities, each defined as consisting of 10 of the previous entity, with the document consisting of a single instance of the largest entity, which expands to one billion copies of the first entity. The amount of computer memory used for handling an external SOAP call would likely exceed that available to the process parsing the XML.
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 confidenceSoap Lite (SOAP::Lite for Perl) 1.14 and earlier is vulnerable to a Billion Laughs attack (XML Entity Expansion). Attackers define 10+ XML entities where each entity references 10 copies of the previous entity, causing exponential expansion that can consume billions of times the original document size in memory, leading to 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<= 1.14CVSS 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
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
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 SOAP::Lite is installedRun `perl -MSOAP::Lite -e 'print $SOAP::Lite::VERSION'` or check your Perl environment's installed modulesAffected if SOAP::Lite is not installed - the vulnerability does not apply
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Verify the installed versionCompare the version number obtained from the previous step against the affected range: version 1.14 and earlierAffected if The installed version is 1.14 or earlier
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Identify if SOAP::Lite XML parsing is in useReview application code for use of SOAP::Lite's XML parsing capabilities, particularly when handling XML from external or untrusted sourcesAffected if The application uses SOAP::Lite to parse XML from untrusted sources without external entity expansion disabled
A system is affected if SOAP::Lite version 1.14 or earlier is installed and used to parse XML from potentially untrusted sources.
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 dataDisable XML external entity expansion in the XML parser configuration, or upgrade to a patched version of SOAP::Lite if available. Implement memory and entity expansion limits for XML parsing.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $6,176.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2015-8978 — 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-2015-8978 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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