CVE-2015-1803

high
Published 2015-03-20 · Modified 2026-05-06
CVSS v3
CVSS v2
8.5
VIR risk
8.5

Description

The bdfReadCharacters function in bitmap/bdfread.c in X.Org libXfont before 1.4.9 and 1.5.x before 1.5.1 does not properly handle character bitmaps it cannot read, which allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and crash) and possibly execute arbitrary code via a crafted BDF font file.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood
20%
Patch ETA

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: debian — https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2015-1803

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: secalert@redhat.com — http://www.x.org/wiki/Development/Security/Advisory-2015-03-17/

OS impact

OSVersionStatusFixed in
debian debianbookwormfixed1:1.5.1-1
debian debianbullseyefixed1:1.5.1-1
debian debianforkyfixed1:1.5.1-1
debian debiansidfixed1:1.5.1-1
debian debiantrixiefixed1:1.5.1-1
debian debian7.0affected
ubuntu ubuntu10.04affected
ubuntu ubuntu12.04affected
ubuntu ubuntu14.04affected
ubuntu ubuntu14.10affected

Application impact

VendorProductVersionsFixed
xlibxfont{"endIncluding":"1.4.8"}
xlibxfont1.5.0

References

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.