CVE-2015-8381: Pcre Perl Compatible Regular Expression Library

High severity, CVSS 7.5. EPSS: 5.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

The compile_regex function in pcre_compile.c in PCRE before 8.38 and pcre2_compile.c in PCRE2 before 10.2x mishandles the /(?J:(?|(:(?|(?'R')(\k'R')|((?'R')))H'Rk'Rf)|s(?'R'))))/ and /(?J:(?|(:(?|(?'R')(\z(?|(?'R')(\k'R')|((?'R')))k'R')|((?'R')))H'Ak'Rf)|s(?'R')))/ patterns, and related patterns with certain group references, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (heap-based buffer overflow) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted regular expression, as demonstrated by a JavaScript RegExp object encountered by Konqueror.

Affected products

• Pcre Perl Compatible Regular Expression Library: up to and including 8.37

Published 2015-12-02. Last modified 2026-06-17.