CVE-2024-56406: perl Heap Overflow — Fix

Description

A heap buffer overflow vulnerability was discovered in Perl. Release branches 5.34, 5.36, 5.38 and 5.40 are affected, including development versions from 5.33.1 through 5.41.10. When there are non-ASCII bytes in the left-hand-side of the `tr` operator, `S_do_trans_invmap` can overflow the destination pointer `d`. $ perl -e '$_ = "\x{FF}" x 1000000; tr/\xFF/\x{100}/;' Segmentation fault (core dumped) It is believed that this vulnerability can enable Denial of Service and possibly Code Execution attacks on platforms that lack sufficient defenses.

Is your site exposed to CVE-2024-56406?

Run a free security scan — no signup, results in seconds.

CVSS v3.1 Score

8.4

HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-122 CWE-122

CWE-787 Out-of-bounds Write

Affected Products

Vendor	Product	Versions
perl	perl	5.33.1 — 5.38.4
perl	perl	5.39.0 — 5.40.2
perl	perl	5.41.0 — 5.41.10

References

Advisories & Patches

https://github.com/Perl/perl5/commit/87f42aa0e0096e9a346c9672aa3a0bd3bef8c1dd.patch

Other References

https://metacpan.org/release/SHAY/perl-5.38.4/changes https://metacpan.org/release/SHAY/perl-5.40.2/changes http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/04/13/3 http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/04/13/4 http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/04/13/5

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2024-56406? +

A heap buffer overflow vulnerability was discovered in Perl. Release branches 5.34, 5.36, 5.38 and 5.40 are affected, including development versions from 5.33.1 through 5.41.10. When there are non-ASCII bytes in the left-hand-side of the `tr` operator, `S_do_trans_invmap` can overflow the destination pointer `d`. $ perl -e '$_ = "\x{FF}" x 1000000; tr/\xFF/\x{100}/;' Segmentation fault (core dumped) It is believed that this vulnerability can enable Denial of Service and possibly Code Execution attacks on platforms that lack sufficient defenses. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.4 (HIGH).

How severe is CVE-2024-56406? +

CVE-2024-56406 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 8.4 out of 10, rated HIGH. This is a high-severity vulnerability that should be prioritized for patching.

What products are affected by CVE-2024-56406? +

CVE-2024-56406 affects products from perl, specifically: perl. Check the affected products table above for specific version ranges.

How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2024-56406? +

You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

Related Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-54000

osquery is a SQL powered operating system instrumentation, monitoring, and analytics framework. Prior to 5.23.1, on Windows, a local unprivileged …

CVE-2026-8997

vifm is vulnerable to a heap buffer overflow during the history merge process when saving the state file (vifminfo.json). This …

CVE-2026-15422

The illumos SCTP inbound path performs association lookup for INIT ACK chunks without adequately validating the address parameters carried in …

CVE-2026-15449

A time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) flaw in the illumos data-link pseudo-driver (dld) affects handling of the DLDIOC_GETMACPROP and DLDIOC_SETMACPROP ioctls …

CVE-2026-8484

A heap buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the Jansi JNI "ioctl()" wrapper due to a lack of size verification for …

CVE-2026-6210

A type confusion vulnerability in Qt SVG allows an attacker to cause an application crash via a crafted SVG image. …

CVE-2024-56406