Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2017-8929 is a denial-of-service flaw in YARA 3.5.0. A specially crafted YARA rule can trigger a use-after-free crash. Business impact is service interruption in systems that compile or accept untrusted YARA rules, such as scanning platforms or security automation pipelines.
Executive priority
Treat as a targeted availability risk for security tooling, not a confirmed breach-enabling issue. Prioritize if YARA rule ingestion is exposed to untrusted sources or supports production security operations.
Technical view
The issue is in YARA 3.5.0's sized_string_cmp function in libyara/sizedstr.c. The CVE describes use-after-free and application crash when processing a crafted rule. The provided sources do not include CVSS, CWE, or detailed affected-version ranges beyond YARA 3.5.0.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely where YARA 3.5.0 is embedded in services that accept rules from users, partners, feeds, or remote automation. Deployments that only run trusted, locally controlled rules have lower practical exposure.
Exploitation context
The CVE is not listed as KEV in the provided bundle. The sources do not claim active exploitation. Public issue and commit references exist, so defenders should assume technical details may be discoverable, but not infer weaponized exploitation from these sources.
Researcher notes
Evidence is limited to the CVE description, GitHub issue, and upstream commit reference. The bundle does not provide CVSS, CWE, complete affected-version ranges, or active exploitation claims. Avoid broad product impact claims without local dependency confirmation.
Mitigation direction
- Inventory systems using YARA, especially version 3.5.0.
- Review the upstream issue and commit before deciding remediation scope.
- Upgrade according to official YARA or package-maintainer guidance.
- Restrict who can submit or modify YARA rules.
- Isolate rule-compilation services from critical workflows where possible.
Validation and detection
- Confirm deployed YARA versions across hosts, containers, and embedded tools.
- Identify services that accept remote or third-party YARA rules.
- Check whether vendor packages include the referenced upstream commit.
- Review crash logs around rule ingestion or compilation paths.
- Test remediation in a non-production scanning environment.
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-2017-8929 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://github.com/VirusTotal/yara/issues/658CVE reference · x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/VirusTotal/yara/commit/053e67e3ec81cc9268ce30eaf0d6663d8639ed1eCVE reference · x_refsource_CONFIRM
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.