Executive brief
glib-networking is a software component used by many Linux applications to handle secure internet connections. A flaw in its OpenSSL-based security module could cause an application to crash if the system runs out of memory while establishing a secure connection. This could lead to a service outage or, in rare cases, the exposure of small amounts of technical data from the computer's memory.
Technical details
A NULL pointer dereference and uninitialized memory access vulnerability exists in glib-networking's OpenSSL backend within tls/openssl/gtlsbio.c. The functions g_tls_bio_new_from_iostream and g_tls_bio_new_from_datagram_based fail to verify the success of g_tls_bio_alloc before dereferencing the gbio pointer. If BIO_new fails (e.g., during memory exhaustion), the gbio pointer remains uninitialized, leading to a segmentation fault or potential disclosure of stack data. This issue specifically affects the OpenSSL backend, which is not the default for most Linux distributions. The vulnerability was fixed in version 2.80.2.
Affected products
- GNOME glib-networking 2.60 to 2.80.1
Timeline
- 2025-08-16: disclosed: Reported via YesWeHack
- 2025-09-08: patched: Fixed in version 2.80.2
- 2025-09-25: advisory: CVE published