glibc · CVSS 10.0 · published 28 January 2015
GHOST: CVE-2015-0235
A buffer overflow in glibc's gethostbyname functions that can let a remote attacker run code through a program that resolves a hostname it receives. Below is its status on each Linux distribution past end of life, from the vendors' own security trackers.
- 0end-of-life systems without a free fix
- 9fixed or not affected
GHOST on end-of-life Linux
| Distribution | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|
| CentOS 6 | Fixed | glibc 2.12-1.149.el6_6.5, 27 January 2015 |
| CentOS 7 | Fixed | glibc 2.17-55.el7_0.5, 27 January 2015 |
| RHEL 7 | Fixed | glibc 2.17-55.el7_0.5, 27 January 2015 |
| CentOS 8 | Fixed before release | published before RHEL 8 shipped |
| Ubuntu 16.04 | Fixed before release | published before this release shipped |
| Ubuntu 18.04 | Fixed before release | published before this release shipped |
| Ubuntu 20.04 | Fixed before release | published before this release shipped |
| Debian 10 | Fixed before release | published before this release shipped |
| Debian 11 | Fixed before release | published before this release shipped |
From the Red Hat security data (CentOS and RHEL), the Ubuntu CVE tracker and the Debian security tracker, 29 October 2026. CentOS received Red Hat's fixes only until its own end of life; later fixes went to paid Red Hat support. Fixes marked Ubuntu Pro need a paid subscription. Where a tracker has no entry, the version in the distribution's repository is checked against the NVD range.
What the NVD record says
Heap-based buffer overflow in the __nss_hostname_digits_dots function in glibc 2.2, and other 2.x versions before 2.18, allows context-dependent attackers to execute arbitrary code via vectors related to the (1) gethostbyname or (2) gethostbyname2 function, aka "GHOST."
Score 10.0 (High), published 28 January 2015. Read the NVD entry
Affected upstream versions of glibc
- glibc from 2.0 before 2.18
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