The vulnerability exists when the library is decoding data out of a dataset encoded with the H5Z_NBIT decoding. When calculating the precision that a BCD number is encoded as, the library will fail to ensure that the precision is within the bounds of the size. Due to this, the library will calculate an index outside the bounds of the space allocated for the BCD number. Whilst decoding this data, the library will then write outside the bounds of the buffer leading to a heap-based buffer overflow. This can lead to code execution under the context of the application using the library. External References: http://www.talosintelligence.com/reports/TALOS-2016-0177/
Created hdf5 tracking bugs for this issue: Affects: fedora-all [bug 1397715] Affects: epel-all [bug 1397716]
Created hdf5 tracking bugs for this issue: Affects: openshift-1 [bug 1470479]
This bug is now closed. Further updates for individual products will be reflected on the CVE page(s): https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2016-4331