CVE-2018-14647
Python's elementtree C accelerator failed to initialise Expat's hash salt during initialization. This could make it easy to conduct denial…
- 5.3MediumCVSS base score
- 10.9%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 4.1% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
Python's elementtree C accelerator failed to initialise Expat's hash salt during initialization. This could make it easy to conduct denial of service attacks against Expat by constructing an XML document that would cause pathological hash collisions in Expat's internal data structures, consuming large amounts CPU and RAM. The vulnerability exists in Python versions 3.7.0, 3.6.0 through 3.6.6, 3.5.0 through 3.5.6, 3.4.0 through 3.4.9, 2.7.0 through 2.7.15.
Timeline
ID reserved
By redhat
- 2 months later
· 2 months later
Published
- 8 years later
· 8 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| redhatCNA (assigner) | 3.0 | Medium5.3 | CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 10.9% · top 4.1% of all CVEs (9 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 5.3.
Affected products
- affected 3.8, 3.7, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 2.7
References
16
- DSA-4306 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_DEBIANx_transferred
- USN-3817-2 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_UBUNTUx_transferred
- 1041740 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_SECTRACKx_transferred
- 105396 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_BIDx_transferred
- DSA-4307 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_DEBIANx_transferred
- https://bugs.python.org/issue34623 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- USN-3817-1 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_UBUNTUx_transferred
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2018-14647 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
- FEDORA-2019-0c91ce7b3c (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_FEDORAx_transferred
- RHSA-2019:1260 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_REDHATx_transferred
- [debian-lts-announce] 20190625 [SECURITY] [DLA 1834-1] python2.7 security update (opens in a new tab)mailing-listx_refsource_MLISTx_transferred
- [debian-lts-announce] 20190625 [SECURITY] [DLA 1835-1] python3.4 security update (opens in a new tab)mailing-listx_refsource_MLISTx_transferred
- RHSA-2019:2030 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_REDHATx_transferred
- RHSA-2019:3725 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_REDHATx_transferred
- openSUSE-SU-2020:0086 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_SUSEx_transferred
- [bookkeeper-issues] 20200729 [GitHub] [bookkeeper] padma81 opened a new issue #2387: Security vulnerabilities in the apache/bookkeeper-4.9.2 image (opens in a new tab)mailing-listx_refsource_MLISTx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2018-6545 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2018-14647)Record last updated .