High [CVE-2024-8176] Libexpat: expat: improper restriction of xml entity expansion depth in libexpat

A stack overflow vulnerability exists in the libexpat library due to the way it handles recursive entity expansion in XML documents. When parsing an XML document with deeply nested entity references, libexpat can be forced to recurse indefinitely, exhausting the stack space and causing a crash.

This issue could lead to denial of service (DoS) or, in some cases, exploitable memory corruption, depending on the environment and library usage. All supported Red Hat offerings are built with the compilation flag (-fstack-clash-protection) which reduces the impact to Moderate.

This build configuration blocks the possibility of an attacker gaining arbitrary code execution even if a stack-clash vulnerability, like this one, could be exploited. This vulnerability is rated Moderate because Red Hat builds use the `-fstack-clash-protection` compiler flag, which mitigates the risk of arbitrary code execution from stack overflows.

While the flaw allows a crash via uncontrolled recursion in XML parsing, the hardened stack layout prevents reliable memory corruption, limiting the impact to a Denial of Service (DoS) scenario. Red Hat severity: Moderate — CVSS 7.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

Weakness: CWE-674.