SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityDeferred

CVE-2016-15059

Net::IDN::Punycode versions before 2.301 for Perl allow a heap buffer overflow via unchecked writes past the output buffer in encode_punycode.

CRITICAL 9.8EPSS 0.42%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.42%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

Net::IDN::Punycode versions before 2.301 for Perl allow a heap buffer overflow via unchecked writes past the output buffer in encode_punycode. The XS backend builds the encoded label in the string buffer of the scalar it returns, sized from the input length. The loop that emits the digits of each code point checks for room before every write, but the write of the last digit of each round and the write of the terminating NUL do not, so an input whose encoded form fills the buffer writes past its end. Only the XS backend is affected. Encoding an attacker-supplied string corrupts the heap.

CVSS 3.1
9.8 CRITICALCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
0.42% probability · 36th percentile
Public exploits
None in Exploit-DB
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-122
Source
9b29abf9-4ab0-4765-b253-1875cd9b441e
EPSS trend
0%3%5%22 September 2026: 0.17%26 October 2026: 0.42%22 September 202626 October 2026

EPSS moved from 0.2% on 22 September 2026 to 0.4% on 26 October 2026.

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.