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FreeradiusApplication

CVE-2017-10979

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.0 Published 2017-07-17
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
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
An FR-GV-202 issue in FreeRADIUS 2.x before 2.2.10 allows "Write overflow in rad_coalesce()" - this allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code.

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
FreeradiusApplication
Affected:= 2.0.0= 2.0.1= 2.0.2= 2.0.3= 2.0.4= 2.0.5= 2.1.0= 2.1.1= 2.1.2= 2.1.3= 2.1.4= 2.1.6

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:3.0/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
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch freeradius.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

FreeRADIUS 2.2.10 or later (2.x branch)

  1. 1. Backup your current FreeRADIUS configuration directory (/etc/raddb or /etc/freeradius)
  2. 2. Stop the FreeRADIUS service: 'systemctl stop freeradius' or 'service freeradius stop'
  3. 3. Remove the current FreeRADIUS packages: 'apt-get remove freeradius' (Debian/Ubuntu) or 'yum remove freeradius' (RHEL/CentOS)
  4. 4. Configure the package repository to get the latest FreeRADIUS 2.x packages
  5. 5. Install FreeRADIUS 2.2.10 or later: 'apt-get install freeradius' or 'yum install freeradius'
  6. 6. Restore your configuration from the backup
  7. 7. Start the FreeRADIUS service: 'systemctl start freeradius' or 'service freeradius start'
  8. 8. Verify the version running: 'freeradius -v'
Caveat Minimal - this is a security patch fix; however, review release notes for any configuration changes between your version and 2.2.10

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

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Free · runs locally
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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-2017-10979 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
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