Is CVE-2015-8389 actively exploited?

CVE-2015-8389 has no public evidence of in-the-wild exploitation as of 2025-04-12.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2015-8389?

CVE-2015-8389 has a CVSS score of 9.8 (CRITICAL severity). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

How do I patch CVE-2015-8389?

Patch guidance is available from pcre security advisories. CVEDatabase generates AI-assisted remediation guidance on demand for CVE-2015-8389.

Fix CVE-2015-8389 - CRITICAL

Q: Which products are affected by CVE-2015-8389?

5 products: pcre perl compatible regular expression library, fedoraproject fedora, php php, php php, php php.

Description

PCRE before 8.38 mishandles the /(?:|a|){100}x/ pattern and related patterns, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite recursion) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted regular expression, as demonstrated by a JavaScript RegExp object encountered by Konqueror.

CVSS Metrics

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack Vector: network
Complexity: low
Privileges: none
User Action: none
Scope: unchanged
Confidentiality: high
Integrity: high
Availability: high
Weaknesses: CWE-119 · Memory Buffer Errors CWE-185

Metadata

Primary Vendor: PCRE
Published: 12/2/2015
Last Modified: 4/12/2025
Source: NIST NVD
Note: Verify all details with official vendor sources before applying patches.

Affected Products

pcre : perl_compatible_regular_expression_libraryfedoraproject : fedoraphp : phpphp : phpphp : php

Remediation Guidance

Executive Summary

Cite this page

CVE-2015-8389. CVEDatabase.com. Retrieved 1 May 2026. https://cvedatabase.com/cve/CVE-2015-8389

View on NIST NVD

CVE-2015-8389 vulnerability