CVE-2014-8121: Canonical Ubuntu Linux

Medium severity, CVSS 5.0. EPSS: 5.6% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

DB_LOOKUP in nss_files/files-XXX.c in the Name Service Switch (NSS) in GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) 2.21 and earlier does not properly check if a file is open, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) by performing a look-up on a database while iterating over it, which triggers the file pointer to be reset.

Affected products

• Canonical Ubuntu Linux: version 12.04 only; version 14.04 only; version 15.10 only
• GNU Glibc: up to and including 2.21
• Suse Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop: version 11 only
• Suse Suse Linux Enterprise Server: version 11.0 only

Published 2015-03-27. Last modified 2026-06-17.