CVE-2012-2738

Description

The VteTerminal in gnome-terminal (vte) before 0.32.2 allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service (long loop and CPU consumption) via an escape sequence with a large repeat count value.

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

Debian

Security tracker ↗

Release	Package	Fixed in	Advisory
Debian 14	vte	1:0.28.2-5	—
Debian 13	vte	1:0.28.2-5	—
Debian 12	vte	1:0.28.2-5	—

Alpine

Security tracker ↗

Release	Package	Fixed in	Advisory
Alpine v3.14	vte	0.28.2-r12	—
Alpine v3.13	vte	0.28.2-r12	—
Alpine v3.12	vte	0.28.2-r12	—
Alpine v3.11	vte	0.28.2-r12	—
Alpine v3.10	vte	0.28.2-r12	—

Show 4 more (older releases, extended support, other products)

Release	Package	Fixed in	Advisory
Alpine v3.9	vte	0.28.2-r12	—
Alpine v3.8	vte	0.28.2-r12	—
Alpine v3.7	vte	0.28.2-r12	—
Alpine v3.6	vte	0.28.2-r12	—

Public exploits

Exploit or proof-of-concept code for this vulnerability is publicly available, which lowers the bar for attackers. Treat it as a reason to patch sooner.

Third-party code, not reviewed by us. Public PoCs are sometimes fake or contain malware. Read the code first and run it only in an isolated lab, against systems you are authorised to test.

Exploit-DB 1

gnome-terminal (vte) VteTerminal - Escape Sequence Parsing Remote Denial of Service EDB-37477 · dos · Jul 3, 2012 · verified

Sources: PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit Framework, Exploit-DB — updated daily. Only links are listed; no exploit code is hosted here.

The VteTerminal in gnome-terminal (vte) before 0.32.2 allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service (long loop and CPU con…