Description
The "process-execute" and "process-spawn" procedures in CHICKEN Scheme used fixed-size buffers for holding the arguments and environment variables to use in its execve() call. This would allow user-supplied argument/environment variable lists to trigger a buffer overrun. This affects all releases of CHICKEN up to and including 4.11 (it will be fixed in 4.12 and 5.0, which are not yet released).
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 | chicken | 4.12.0-0.2 | — |
| Debian 13 | chicken | 4.12.0-0.2 | — |
| Debian 12 | chicken | 4.12.0-0.2 | — |
| Debian 7 | chicken | 4.7.0-1+deb7u1 | DLA-643-1 |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 16.04 LTS | chicken | No fix yet | — |
Alpine
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine v3.24 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.23 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.22 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.21 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.20 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
Show 14 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine v3.19 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.18 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.17 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.16 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.15 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.14 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.13 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.12 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.11 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.10 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.9 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.8 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.7 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
| Alpine v3.6 | chicken | 4.11.1-r0 | — |
Advisories 1
- DLA-643-1 chicken - security update Debian Security (DSA / DLA) · Mar 9, 2026
References
- 92550 vdb-entry
- [chicken-announce] 20160812 [SECURITY] Buffer overrun in process-execute and process-spawn mailing-list