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CVE-2019-5482 Moderate

TFTP small blocksize heap buffer overflow

libcurl contains a heap buffer overflow in the function (`tftp_receive_packet()`) that receives data from a TFTP server. It can call `recvfrom()` with the default size for the buffer rather than with the size that was used to allocate it. Thus, the content that might overwrite the heap memory is controlled by the server. This flaw is only triggered if the TFTP server sends an `OACK` without the `BLKSIZE` option, when a `BLKSIZE` smaller than 512 bytes was requested by the TFTP client. `OACK` is a TFTP extension and is not used by all TFTP servers. Users choosing a smaller block size than default should be rare as the primary use case for changing the size is to make it larger. It is rare for users to use TFTP across the Internet. It is most commonly used within local networks. TFTP as a protocol is always inherently insecure. This issue was introduced by the add of the TFTP `BLKSIZE` option handling. It was previously incompletely fixed by an almost identical issue called CVE-2019-5436.

Exploit probability 17.9%
Published September 11, 2019
Required by Not available
Last source change May 27, 2026

02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE

Affected packages

Unknown Unknown

75 explicit affected versions

Unknown Unknown

154 explicit affected versions

03 / CONNECTIONS

Connected vulnerabilities

04 / EVIDENCE

Source records

Open Source Vulnerabilities CVE-2019-5482

Heap buffer overflow in the TFTP protocol handler in cURL 7.19.4 to 7.65.3.

View original source
Open Source Vulnerabilities CURL-CVE-2019-5482

libcurl contains a heap buffer overflow in the function (`tftp_receive_packet()`) that receives data from a TFTP server. It can call `recvfrom()` with the default size for the buffer rather than with the size that was used to allocate it. Thus, the content that might overwrite the heap memory is controlled by the server. This flaw is only triggered if the TFTP server sends an `OACK` without the `BLKSIZE` option, when a `BLKSIZE` smaller than 512 bytes was requested by the TFTP client. `OACK` is a TFTP extension and is not used by all TFTP servers. Users choosing a smaller block size than default should be rare as the primary use case for changing the size is to make it larger. It is rare for users to use TFTP across the Internet. It is most commonly used within local networks. TFTP as a protocol is always inherently insecure. This issue was introduced by the add of the TFTP `BLKSIZE` option handling. It was previously incompletely fixed by an almost identical issue called CVE-2019-5436.

View original source

05 / REFERENCES

Further evidence