protobuf allows remote authenticated attackers to cause a heap-based buffer overflow.
CVE-2015-5237
This high-severity CVE scores 8.8 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 0.8%, top 26% 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).
- High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 8.8
- EG Score
- 8.8(medium)
- EPSS
- 91.4%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
September 25, 2017
Last Modified
May 13, 2026
References (64)
- secalert@redhathttp://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/08/27/2
- secalert@redhathttps://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1256426
- secalert@redhathttps://github.com/google/protobuf/issues/760
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/519eb0fd45642dcecd9ff74cb3e71c20a4753f7d82e2f07864b5108f%40%3Cdev.drill.apache.org%3E
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/b0656d359c7d40ec9f39c8cc61bca66802ef9a2a12ee199f5b0c1442%40%3Cdev.drill.apache.org%3E
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/f9bc3e55f4e28d1dcd1a69aae6d53e609a758e34d2869b4d798e13cc%40%3Cissues.drill.apache.org%3E
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r00097d0b5b6164ea428554007121d5dc1f88ba2af7b9e977a10572cd%40%3Cdev.hbase.apache.org%3E
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r00d9ab1fc0f1daf14cd4386564dd84f7889404438d81462c86dfa836%40%3Ccommon-dev.hadoop.apache.org%3E
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r02e39d7beb32eebcdbb4b516e95f67d71c90d5d462b26f4078d21eeb%40%3Cdev.flink.apache.org%3E
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r02e39d7beb32eebcdbb4b516e95f67d71c90d5d462b26f4078d21eeb%40%3Cuser.flink.apache.org%3E
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r0ca83171c4898dc92b86fa6f484a7be1dc96206765f4d01dce0f1b28%40%3Ccommon-issues.hadoop.apache.org%3E
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r1263fa5b51e4ec3cb8f09ff40e4747428c71198e9bee93349ec96a3c%40%3Ccommits.pulsar.apache.org%3E
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r14fa8d38d5757254f1a2e112270c996711d514de2e3b01c93d397ab4%40%3Cissues.spark.apache.org%3E
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r17dc6f394429f6bffb5e4c66555d93c2e9923cbbdc5a93db9a56c1c7%40%3Ccommits.pulsar.apache.org%3E
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r1d274d647b3c2060df9be21eade4ce56d3a59998cf19ac72662dd994%40%3Ccommits.pulsar.apache.org%3E
Vendor Advisories for CVE-2015-5237(1)
These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.
Patch Availability(1)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| ubuntu | protobuf-compiler (2.6.1-1.3ubuntu0.1~esm2) @ xenial | 2026-05-22 | ubuntu |
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
(5 across 5 ecosystems)
Go(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf | — | 3.4.0 | — |
Maven(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| com.google.protobuf:protobuf-parent | 3.0.0 ... 3.3.1 (10 versions) | 3.4.0 | — |
NuGet(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google.Protobuf | 0.0.1-test1 ... 3.3.0 (11 versions) | 3.4.0 | — |
Packagist(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| google/protobuf | v3.1.0-alpha-1 ... v3.4.0rc3 (9 versions) | 3.4.0 | — |
PyPI(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| protobuf | 2.0.0beta ... 3.3.0 (25 versions) | 3.4.0 | — |
All Vendor Advisories
(1)
Every vendor that published an advisory referencing this CVE — pulled from our cve_vendor_advisories aggregation. Click any row for the vendor's original advisory page.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 8× in last 7d / 39× 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.
- 2026-07-11 17:22 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-07-11 08:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-09 19:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-09 19:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-08 15:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 02:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-05 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-04 06:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 15:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 23:19 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 23:19 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:53 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-27 03:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-23 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-23 00:00 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-22 14:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-22 14:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-19 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-19 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-18 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-17 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-17 17:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-15 17:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-14 23:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 22:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-12 23:09 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-12 23:09 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-11 13:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-11 13:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-10 22:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-10 13:18 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-08 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 22:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 17:57 UTCOSV refresh
- 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 20:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-01 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-01 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 22:28 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 13:41 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:16 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:16 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-24 16:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-23 00:10 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-22 21:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-22 09:33 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-22 09:33 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-05-21 22:40 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-20 11:21 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-20 11:21 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-20 11:21 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-18 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-18 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2015-5237?
When was CVE-2015-5237 disclosed?
Is CVE-2015-5237 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2015-5237?
How do I remediate CVE-2015-5237?
Dependency Blast Radius
See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2015-5237
Is Your Infrastructure Affected by CVE-2015-5237?
EchelonGraph automatically scans your cloud infrastructure and maps CVE exposure using blast radius analysis.