A NULL pointer dereference vulnerability exists in the xpath.c:xmlXPathCompOpEval() function of libxml2 through 2.9.8 when parsing an invalid XPath expression in the XPATH_OP_AND or XPATH_OP_OR case. Applications processing untrusted XSL format inputs with the use of the libxml2 library may be vulnerable to a denial of service attack due to a crash of the application.
CVE-2018-14404
This medium-severity CVE scores 6.5 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 3.7%, top 11% of all CVEs by exploit prediction. GitHub Security Advisory data not yet ingested — confidence will rise once GHSA publishes (typical lag: hours to days for open-source ecosystem CVEs; never for infrastructure-only CVEs).
- Lower severity and no public exploit yet
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 6.5
- EG Score
- 6.5(medium)
- EPSS
- 88.5%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
July 19, 2018
Last Modified
December 3, 2025
References (18)
- cve@mitrehttps://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:1543
- cve@mitrehttps://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=901817
- cve@mitrehttps://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1595985
- cve@mitrehttps://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/issues/10
- cve@mitrehttps://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/09/msg00035.html
- cve@mitrehttps://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/09/msg00009.html
- cve@mitrehttps://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20190719-0002/
- cve@mitrehttps://usn.ubuntu.com/3739-1/
- cve@mitrehttps://usn.ubuntu.com/3739-2/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:1543
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=901817
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1595985
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/issues/10
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/09/msg00035.html
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/09/msg00009.html
Vendor Advisories for CVE-2018-14404(2)
These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.
Patch Availability(8)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| ubuntu | python-libxml2 (2.7.8.dfsg-5.1ubuntu4.21) @ precise | 2026-05-23 | ubuntu |
| ubuntu | python-libxml2 (2.9.3+dfsg1-1ubuntu0.6) @ xenial | 2026-05-23 | ubuntu |
| redhat | libxml2-0:2.9.7-7.el8 | 2020-04-28 | redhat |
| redhat | ansible-tower-35/ansible-tower:3.5.6-1 | 2020-04-22 | redhat |
| redhat | ansible-tower-36/ansible-tower:3.6.4-1 | 2020-04-22 | redhat |
| redhat | redhat-virtualization-host-0:4.3.9-20200324.0.el7_8 | 2020-04-02 | redhat |
| redhat | libxml2-0:2.9.1-6.el7.4 | 2020-03-31 | redhat |
| redhat | libxml2 | 2019-06-18 | redhat |
Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.
Affected Packages
(1 across 1 ecosystem)
RubyGems(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nokogiri | 1.0.0 ... 1.8.4 (104 versions) | 1.8.5 | — |
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Additional Vendor Advisories
(6)
Vendors that published advisories for this CVE beyond the curated set above. Broader coverage but minimal per-row detail — click through for the original advisory.
- Red HatRHBA-2020:1310MODERATE2018-06-18
RHBA-2020:1310 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2019:1543MODERATE2018-06-18
RHSA-2019:1543 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2020:1190MODERATE2018-06-18
RHSA-2020:1190 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2020:1827MODERATE2018-06-18
RHSA-2020:1827 — Moderate
- UbuntuUSN-3739-1MEDIUM
libxml2 vulnerabilities
- UbuntuUSN-3739-2MEDIUM
libxml2 vulnerabilities
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 10× in last 7d / 42× in last 30d)
Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.
- 2026-07-22 22:13 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-21 15:21 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-20 17:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-20 17:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-19 14:28 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-15 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 22:26 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 06:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-12 19:08 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-07-12 05:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-11 08:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-09 19:06 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-08 15:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-07 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-07 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 02:20 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-04 06:28 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-30 23:19 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-29 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:53 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-27 03:06 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 03:59 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-23 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-19 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-18 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-15 17:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-14 23:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-14 23:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-12 23:09 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-11 13:57 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-08 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-07 08:50 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 22:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 22:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-01 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 22:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 00:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 00:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-29 13:41 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-27 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-27 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-23 02:33 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-23 02:33 UTCVendor advisory
Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2018-14404?
When was CVE-2018-14404 disclosed?
Is CVE-2018-14404 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2018-14404?
How do I remediate CVE-2018-14404?
Dependency Blast Radius
See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2018-14404
Is Your Infrastructure Affected by CVE-2018-14404?
EchelonGraph automatically scans your cloud infrastructure and maps CVE exposure using blast radius analysis.