CVE-2019-9704 — vixie-cron: calloc return value resulting in remote dos

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MEDIUM

vixie-cron: calloc return value resulting in remote dos

Published Mar 12, 2019

5.5

MEDIUM

CVSS 3.1

EPSS 0.35%

Description

Vixie Cron before the 3.0pl1-133 Debian package allows local users to cause a denial of service (daemon crash) via a large crontab file because the calloc return value is not checked.

Affected products

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

vixie-cron

Will not fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

cronie

Out of support scope
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

cronie

Will not fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

cronie

Will not fix

Product	Package	State	Advisory
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5	vixie-cron	Will not fix	n/a
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6	cronie	Out of support scope	n/a
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7	cronie	Will not fix	n/a
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8	cronie	Will not fix	n/a

Remediation

Red Hat statement

This vulnerability was rated as LOW severity because it requires local access and a specially crafted crontab file to exploit. While it does not lead to system compromise, it can cause the cron service to crash temporarily

Metrics

0.35% 0.00350

Estimated probability of exploitation in the wild in the next 30 days (FIRST EPSS). As of Oct 1, 2026.

EPSS probability 0.00350

Score over time

2021–2026

EPSS v1
EPSS v5
EPSS v2
EPSS v3

Percentile over time

EPSS v1
EPSS v5
EPSS v2
EPSS v3

Table of values (10 key points)

Flat stretches are collapsed; showing up to 120 newest points.

Date	Score	Percentile	Model
Oct 1, 2026	0.35% (0.00350)	26.28th	v5 (v2026.06.15)
Sep 20, 2026	0.35% (0.00350)	28.72th	v5 (v2026.06.15)
Jul 20, 2024	0.04% (0.00042)	5.06th	v3 (v2023.03.01)
Mar 7, 2023	0.04% (0.00042)	5.63th	v3 (v2023.03.01)
Mar 6, 2023	0.95% (0.00950)	32.28th	v2 (v2022.01.01)
Feb 4, 2022	1.67% (0.01669)	53.27th	v2 (v2022.01.01)
Feb 3, 2022	3.62% (0.03615)	68.44th	v1
Jan 6, 2022	3.62% (0.03615)	68.14th	v1
Jan 5, 2022	0.83% (0.00829)	53.71th	v5 (v2026.06.15)
Apr 14, 2021	0.69% (0.00691)	0.00th	v1

Weaknesses (3)

CWE-252

CWE-400

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

CWE-476

NULL Pointer Dereference

References (9)

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/107373
vdb-entryx_refsource_BIDThird Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2019-9704
Vendor Advisory
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1687688
Issue Tracking
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/03/msg00025.html
mailing-listx_refsource_MLISTMailing ListThird Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/10/msg00029.html
mailing-listx_refsource_MLISTMailing ListThird Party Advisory
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/6DU7HAUAQR4E4AEBPYLUV6FZ4PHKH6A2/
vendor-advisoryx_refsource_FEDORA
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-9704
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/cron/commit/f2525567
x_refsource_MISCPatchThird Party Advisory
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-9704

Link	Providers	Tags
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/107373		vdb-entryx_refsource_BIDThird Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2019-9704		Vendor Advisory
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1687688		Issue Tracking
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/03/msg00025.html		mailing-listx_refsource_MLISTMailing ListThird Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/10/msg00029.html		mailing-listx_refsource_MLISTMailing ListThird Party Advisory
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/6DU7HAUAQR4E4AEBPYLUV6FZ4PHKH6A2/		vendor-advisoryx_refsource_FEDORA
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-9704
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/cron/commit/f2525567		x_refsource_MISCPatchThird Party Advisory
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-9704