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CVE-2003-1564 — MEDIUM severity vulnerability (libxml2, possibly before 2.5.0, does not properly detect rec)

libxml2, possibly before 2.5.0, does not properly detect recursion during entity expansion, which allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (memory and CPU consumption) via a crafted XML document containing a large number of nested entity references, aka the "billion laughs attack."

CVE IDCVE-2003-1564
SeverityMEDIUM
CVSS score6.5
CVSS vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWECWE-776
StatusModified
Published2003-12-31
Last modified2026-04-16
Descriptionlibxml2, possibly before 2.5.0, does not properly detect recursion during entity expansion, which allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (memory and CPU consumption) via a crafted XML document containing a large number of nested entity references, aka the "billion laughs attack."
SourceNIST National Vulnerability Database

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