NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting libxml2 package, versions <2.9.8-r1


Severity

Recommended
0.0
high
0
10

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Threat Intelligence

EPSS
3.68% (89th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-ALPINE322-LIBXML2-10277814
  • published31 May 2025
  • disclosed19 Jul 2018

Introduced: 19 Jul 2018

CVE-2018-14404  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-476  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade Alpine:3.22 libxml2 to version 2.9.8-r1 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream libxml2 package and not the libxml2 package as distributed by Alpine. See How to fix? for Alpine:3.22 relevant fixed versions and status.

A NULL pointer dereference vulnerability exists in the xpath.c:xmlXPathCompOpEval() function of libxml2 through 2.9.8 when parsing an invalid XPath expression in the XPATH_OP_AND or XPATH_OP_OR case. Applications processing untrusted XSL format inputs with the use of the libxml2 library may be vulnerable to a denial of service attack due to a crash of the application.