CVE-2004-2264: GNU Less

Medium severity, CVSS 6.4. EPSS: 2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

Format string bug in the open_altfile function in filename.c for GNU less 382, 381, and 358 might allow local users to cause a denial of service or possibly execute arbitrary code via format strings in the LESSOPEN environment variable. NOTE: since less is not setuid or setgid, then this is not a vulnerability unless there are plausible scenarios under which privilege boundaries could be crossed

Affected products

• GNU Less: version 358 only; version 381 only; version 382 only

Published 2004-12-31. Last modified 2026-06-16.