CVE-2017-9226
CWE-787Published: May 24, 2017· Updated: Jun 17, 2026
Official Description
An issue was discovered in Oniguruma 6.2.0, as used in Oniguruma-mod in Ruby through 2.4.1 and mbstring in PHP through 7.1.5. A heap out-of-bounds write or read occurs in next_state_val() during regular expression compilation. Octal numbers larger than 0xff are not handled correctly in fetch_token() and fetch_token_in_cc(). A malformed regular expression containing an octal number in the form of '\700' would produce an invalid code point value larger than 0xff in next_state_val(), resulting in an out-of-bounds write memory corruption.
Technical Analysis
CVE-2017-9226 can be exploited remotely over the network without requiring physical or adjacent access, significantly expanding the attack surface for threat actors.
The vulnerability requires no privileges and no user interaction, making it a prime target for automated exploitation campaigns and worm-like propagation.
A successful exploit results in complete confidentiality breach (data exposure), full integrity compromise (data manipulation), availability disruption (denial of service), with a CVSS base score of 9.8.
From a weakness classification perspective (CWE-787): Out-of-bounds write vulnerabilities can lead to data corruption, crashes, or arbitrary code execution.
CVSS v3.1 Vector Breakdown
Affected Vendors & Products
Exploit & PoC Resources
Official Patches & Advisories
All References (10)
Quick Facts
Related CVEs (CWE-787)
Recommended Actions
- →Apply vendor patches immediately
- →Monitor CVE-2017-9226 in threat intel feeds
- →Review IDS/IPS signatures for exploitation attempts