{"id":26768,"date":"2025-04-19T02:12:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T02:12:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-09-08T04:19:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T10:19:00","slug":"cve-2024-56406-buffer-overflow-vulnerability-in-perl-leading-to-potential-denial-of-service-and-code-execution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2024-56406-buffer-overflow-vulnerability-in-perl-leading-to-potential-denial-of-service-and-code-execution\/","title":{"rendered":"CVE-2024-56406: Buffer Overflow Vulnerability in Perl Leading to Potential Denial of Service and Code Execution<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n

A critical vulnerability labelled as CVE-2024-56406 has been identified within Perl, a widely-used general-purpose scripting language. Specifically, this vulnerability affects release branches 5.34, 5.36, 5.38, and 5.40 including development versions from 5.33.1 through 5.41.10. This vulnerability, if exploited, could lead to a Denial of Service and possibly Code Execution<\/a> attacks on platforms that lack sufficient defenses. It is of utmost importance for organizations using Perl to understand this vulnerability and take immediate steps to mitigate the potential<\/a> risks.<\/p>\n

Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

CVE ID: CVE-2024-56406
\nSeverity: High (CVSS: 8.6)
\nAttack Vector: Network
\nPrivileges Required: None
\nUser Interaction: None
\nImpact: System compromise<\/a>, data leakage<\/p>\n

Affected Products<\/strong><\/p>\n

Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n

Perl | 5.34, 5.36, 5.38, 5.40, 5.33.1 through 5.41.10<\/p>\n

How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n

This vulnerability is a heap buffer overflow<\/a> that occurs when there are non-ASCII bytes in the left-hand-side of the `tr` operator in Perl. The function `S_do_trans_invmap` can overflow the destination pointer<\/a> `d`, which can lead to a segmentation fault. This fault condition can potentially be exploited by an attacker to execute arbitrary code<\/a> or crash the application, leading to a denial of service.<\/p>\n

Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p>\n

An example of how this vulnerability might be exploited<\/a> is as follows:<\/p>\n

$ perl -e '$_ = \"\\x{FF}\" x 1000000; tr\/\\xFF\/\\x{100}\/;'\nSegmentation fault (core dumped)<\/code><\/pre>\n
This command artificially creates a string with a large number of non-ASCII characters and attempts to translate these using the `tr` operator, causing a buffer overflow<\/a> and a subsequent segmentation fault.<\/p>\n
Mitigation and Prevention<\/strong><\/p>\n
The recommended mitigation for CVE-2024-56406 is to apply the latest vendor patch that corresponds to your version of Perl. If this is not possible, consider using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) as a temporary mitigation. These systems can be configured to detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability<\/a>. However, these measures should be considered temporary, and applying the vendor patch should be the ultimate goal to fully mitigate the vulnerability<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Overview A critical vulnerability labelled as CVE-2024-56406 has been identified within Perl, a widely-used general-purpose scripting language. Specifically, this vulnerability affects release branches 5.34, 5.36, 5.38, and 5.40 including development versions from 5.33.1 through 5.41.10. This vulnerability, if exploited, could lead to a Denial of Service and possibly Code Execution attacks on platforms that lack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"vendor":[],"product":[],"attack_vector":[86,87],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-26768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","attack_vector-buffer-overflow","attack_vector-dos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t