Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2004-2779 is a denial-of-service flaw in libid3tag through 0.15.1b. A malformed MP3 metadata tag can make affected software repeatedly allocate memory until it runs out, potentially crashing the process or host service.
Executive priority
Treat as a targeted availability risk for systems that process untrusted media. Prioritize internet-facing upload pipelines, automated scanners, and shared media services before ordinary desktops.
Technical view
The issue is in id3_utf16_deserialize() in utf16.c. ID3v2 tags encoded as UTF-16 with an odd byte count are misparsed, causing an endless allocation loop and out-of-memory denial of service.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely in services, desktop apps, media libraries, or processing pipelines that use libid3tag and parse untrusted audio metadata. The source bundle does not identify specific downstream products.
Exploitation context
The provided sources do not show active exploitation, and the CVE is not listed as KEV. Abuse would require the vulnerable parser to process specially malformed ID3v2 metadata.
Researcher notes
Sources identify a precise parser defect but provide no CVSS, CWE, or confirmed exploit activity. The Debian patch reference is the strongest remediation signal in the bundle.
Mitigation direction
- Inventory applications and services that use libid3tag.
- Update libid3tag through vendor or distribution packages where available.
- Confirm the Debian UTF-16 parsing patch or equivalent fix is present.
- Restrict automated processing of untrusted audio files where patching is delayed.
- Monitor vendor and distribution advisories for supported remediation guidance.
Validation and detection
- Check installed libid3tag versions and package changelogs.
- Verify whether the UTF-16 deserialization patch is applied.
- Review media-processing logs for crashes or out-of-memory events.
- Confirm untrusted audio ingestion paths are isolated or resource-limited.
- Ensure regression tests cover malformed UTF-16 ID3v2 metadata handling.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CVE-2004-2779 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Unknown
- CVSS
- Not scored
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS and timeline data
No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=162647CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=304913CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://sources.debian.org/patches/libid3tag/0.15.1b-13/10_utf16.dpatch/CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.