Gstreamer
CVE-2017-5843
HIGH
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2021 - Vulnerable and Outdated Components
ASVS 5.0
V15 - Secure Coding and Architecture Memory lifecycle management
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 2 tactics: Execution, Privilege Escalation The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | The CVSS v3.0 score of 7.5 (High) reflects network-based exploitation (AV:N) with low complexity (AC:L) requiring no privileges (PR:N) or user interaction (UI:N), but limited to availability impact (A:H). However, the real-world risk is moderate: the EPSS score of 7.13% in the 91st percentile indicates this vulnerability is more likely to be exploited than 91% of CVEs, suggesting genuine attacker interest. The vulnerability requires victim interaction to process a malicious MXF file (via media playback, preview generation, or automated processing pipelines), which somewhat limits automated exploitation. Technical impact is limited to denial of service rather than code execution, and patches have been available since February 2017. Multiple vendor advisories (Debian DSA-3818, Red Hat RHSA-2017:2060, Gentoo GLSA-201705-10) confirm widespread recognition. This is a legitimate priority for systems processing untrusted media files, but not critical for most deployments given the DoS-only impact and patch availability. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker hosts a malicious MXF video file on a website or distributes it via email attachment. When a victim opens the file in a media player using vulnerable GStreamer libraries (or when automated thumbnail generation or media indexing services process the file), the crafted stream tags trigger use-after-free conditions in the demuxer, causing the application to crash and denying service. The attack requires no authentication and can be automated against systems that process user-uploaded media files. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Mar 17, 2026
Multiple use-after-free vulnerabilities exist in GStreamer's handling of MXF (Material eXchange Format) media files, affecting versions prior to 1.10.3. Remote attackers can exploit these flaws by crafting malicious MXF files that trigger memory corruption in functions handling stream tags (gst_mini_object_unref, gst_tag_list_unref, and gst_mxf_demux_update_essence_tracks), causing application crashes and denial of service. With an EPSS score of 7.13% (91st percentile), this vulnerability has moderate real-world exploitation probability, though no KEV listing indicates limited active exploitation.
RemediationAI
Upgrade GStreamer to version 1.10.3 or later as documented in the official release advisory at https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/releases/1.10/#1.10.3. Distribution-specific patches are available through Debian (https://www.debian.org/security/2017/dsa-3818), Red Hat (https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2060), and Gentoo (https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201705-10) security advisories. Until patching is completed, implement defense-in-depth measures including restricting processing of untrusted MXF files, running media processing in sandboxed environments with limited privileges, and validating file sources. Organizations with automated media processing pipelines should prioritize patching to prevent denial of service attacks against production systems.
Affects your stack
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Technical ContextAI · show details
GStreamer is a widely-used multimedia framework for audio and video processing on Linux and other platforms, affected per CPE cpe:2.3:a:gstreamer:gstreamer. The vulnerability stems from CWE-416 (Use After Free) errors where memory is accessed after being freed during the parsing and demuxing of MXF container files. The three affected functions—gst_mini_object_unref (reference counting), gst_tag_list_unref (tag metadata handling), and gst_mxf_demux_update_essence_tracks (MXF-specific track management)—fail to properly manage object lifecycles when processing malformed stream tags. This class of vulnerability allows freed memory to be dereferenced, leading to undefined behavior that attackers can leverage for crashes or potentially more severe exploitation.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
Lifecycle Timeline
2DescriptionCVE.org
Multiple use-after-free vulnerabilities in the (1) gst_mini_object_unref, (2) gst_tag_list_unref, and (3) gst_mxf_demux_update_essence_tracks functions in GStreamer before 1.10.3 allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via vectors involving stream tags, as demonstrated by 02785736.mxf.
Executive ViewAI
Organizations using GStreamer face notable risk from CVE-2017-5843, a use-after-free vulnerability rated CVSS 7.5. Exploitation could compromise the security of affected deployments. A patch is available and should be applied as part of regular vulnerability management.
Apply vendor patch. If immediate patching is not feasible: (1) Enable ASLR and DEP where available; (2) Implement network segmentation; (3) Monitor for exploitation indicators.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
VulDB
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Use-after-free vulnerabilities occur when a program continues to access memory through a pointer after that memory has been deallocated.
Memory corruption occurs when a program writes data beyond the boundaries of allocated memory regions or accesses memory in unintended ways, violating the integrity of the process's address space.
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
Affected Products (CPE)CVE.org
Heap-based buffer overflow in the flx_decode_delta_fli function in gst/flx/gstflxdec.c in the FLIC decoder in GStreamer
Heap-based buffer overflow in the flx_decode_delta_fli function in gst/flx/gstflxdec.c in the FLIC decoder in GStreamer
Heap-based buffer overflow in the flx_decode_delta_fli function in gst/flx/gstflxdec.c in the FLIC decoder in GStreamer
The FLIC decoder in GStreamer before 1.10.2 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds write an
A heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability exists in GStreamer's RTSP connection parser that allows remote attackers to
A heap buffer over-read vulnerability exists in GStreamer's isomp4 plugin that allows reading past allocated memory boun
An integer overflow vulnerability in the GStreamer multimedia framework's matroska demuxer allows heap memory corruption
A critical integer overflow vulnerability in GStreamer's qtdemux element allows attackers to trigger denial of service o
A critical integer overflow vulnerability in the GStreamer multimedia framework's Matroska (MKV) demuxer can cause denia
An integer overflow vulnerability in GStreamer's Matroska demuxer can cause denial of service or potentially heap memory
An integer overflow vulnerability in GStreamer's AVI demux element allows attackers to trigger a heap overwrite when par
A heap overflow vulnerability exists in GStreamer's matroskaparse element due to an integer overflow in the gst_matroska
GitHub PoC
Exploit-DB