CVE-2017-9047
HIGHEPSS 87th pctlDescription
A buffer overflow was discovered in libxml2 20904-GITv2.9.4-16-g0741801. The function xmlSnprintfElementContent in valid.c is supposed to recursively dump the element content definition into a char buffer 'buf' of size 'size'. The variable len is assigned strlen(buf). If the content->type is XML_ELEMENT_CONTENT_ELEMENT, then (i) the content->prefix is appended to buf (if it actually fits) whereupon (ii) content->name is written to the buffer. However, the check for whether the content->name actually fits also uses 'len' rather than the updated buffer length strlen(buf). This allows us to write about "size" many bytes beyond the allocated memory. This vulnerability causes programs that use libxml2, such as PHP, to crash.
How to fix
Remediation is compiled from vendor and distribution security advisories. Always confirm against the linked source for your exact version and platform.
CVSS v3 Vector
Exploitability
Impact
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Exploit Intelligence
Elevated risk: more likely to be exploited than 87% of all known CVEs.
References
Related Vulnerabilities
Other CWE-119 (Buffer Overflow) vulnerabilities, ordered by exploit likelihood. View all
| CVE | Severity | CVSS | EPSS | Exploited | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2023-4966 | Critical | 9.4 | 100% | KEV + Ransom | Fix |
| CVE-2017-11882 | High | 7.8 | 100% | KEV + Ransom | - |
| CVE-2020-0796 | Critical | 10.0 | 100% | KEV + Ransom | - |
| CVE-2008-4250 | Critical | 9.8 | 99% | KEV | - |
| CVE-2017-15944 | Critical | 9.8 | 98% | KEV | Fix |
| CVE-2015-0014 | High | 10.0 | 97% | - | - |
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Start freeThis product uses NVD data but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS scores courtesy of FIRST.org (https://www.first.org/epss). Source: CISA KEV Catalog. Data as of 2026-05-13.