lynx — security advisory
Lynx, lynx-ssl, and lynx-cur before 2.8.6dev.8 allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via a web page or HTML email that contains invalid HTML including (1) a TEXTAREA tag with a large COLS value and (2) a large tag name in an element that is not terminated, as demonstrated by mangleme. NOTE: a followup suggests that the relevant trigger for this issue is the large COLS value.
- Products
- lynx
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- 2.8.5-2sarge1.2
- CVEs
- CVE-2004-1617
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 31 Oct 2026, 14:23 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
Lynx, lynx-ssl, and lynx-cur before 2.8.6dev.8 allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via a web page or HTML email that contains invalid HTML including (1) a TEXTAREA tag with a large COLS value and (2) a large tag name in an element that is not terminated, as demonstrated by mangleme. NOTE: a followup suggests that the relevant trigger for this issue is the large COLS value.
osv:DEBIAN-CVE-2004-1617
lynx
Fixed versions: 2.8.5-2sarge1.2
lynx
Fixed versions: 2.8.5-2sarge1.2
lynx
Fixed versions: 2.8.5-2sarge1.2
Complete source record
{
"id": "37f3afc6e8d77f6229597b42cec4810be4df74ffe2f02cfd1138f05a081e4817",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/DEBIAN-CVE-2004-1617",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "DEBIAN-CVE-2004-1617",
"summary": "Lynx, lynx-ssl, and lynx-cur before 2.8.6dev.8 allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via a web page or HTML email that contains invalid HTML including (1) a TEXTAREA tag with a large COLS value and (2) a large tag name in an element that is not terminated, as demonstrated by mangleme. NOTE: a followup suggests that the relevant trigger for this issue is the large COLS value.",
"evidence": "osv:DEBIAN-CVE-2004-1617",
"products": [
{
"name": {
"value": "lynx",
"evidence": "/affected/0/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "2.8.5-2sarge1.2",
"evidence": "/affected/0/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
"value": "lynx",
"evidence": "/affected/1/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "2.8.5-2sarge1.2",
"evidence": "/affected/1/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
"value": "lynx",
"evidence": "/affected/2/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "2.8.5-2sarge1.2",
"evidence": "/affected/2/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
}
],
"severity": "unknown",
"structured": {
"id": "DEBIAN-CVE-2004-1617",
"aliases": [
"DEBIAN-CVE-2004-1617"
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"type": "ECOSYSTEM",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.8.5-2sarge1.2"
}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "lynx",
"purl": "pkg:deb/debian/lynx?arch=source&distro=bookworm",
"ecosystem": "Debian:12"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2004-1617.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {
"urgency": "low"
}
},
{
"ranges": [
{
"type": "ECOSYSTEM",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.8.5-2sarge1.2"
}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "lynx",
"purl": "pkg:deb/debian/lynx?arch=source&distro=trixie",
"ecosystem": "Debian:13"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2004-1617.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {
"urgency": "low"
}
},
{
"ranges": [
{
"type": "ECOSYSTEM",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.8.5-2sarge1.2"
}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "lynx",
"purl": "pkg:deb/debian/lynx?arch=source&distro=forky",
"ecosystem": "Debian:14"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2004-1617.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {
"urgency": "low"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-21T15:47:26.665295507Z",
"provider": "osv",
"upstream": [
"CVE-2004-1617"
],
"references": [
"https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2004-1617"
]
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2004-1617",
"evidence": "/upstream"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": null
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 393879,
"published_at": "2004-10-18T04:00:00+00:00"
}