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CVE-2012-0036

curl and libcurl 7.2x before 7.24.0 do not properly consider special characters during extraction...

7.5 HighFix available

curl and libcurl 7.2x before 7.24.0 do not properly consider special characters during extraction of a pathname from a URL, which allows remote attackers to conduct data-injection attacks via a crafted URL, as demonstrated by a CRLF injection attack on the (1) IMAP, (2) POP3, or (3) SMTP protocol.

Exploit likelihood

16.1%Up 12.3 points since Feb 4, 2022
90%50%10%1%

What each source reports

NVD Score used 7.5

curl and libcurl 7.2x before 7.24.0 do not properly consider special characters during extraction of a pathname from a URL, which allows remote attackers to conduct data-injection attacks via a crafted URL, as demonstrated by a CRLF injection attack on the (1) IMAP, (2) POP3, or (3) SMTP protocol.

Record
CVE-2012-0036
CVSS 2.0
7.5 HighAV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Weakness
CWE-89
Updated
2026-11-02
CVE List No score

curl and libcurl 7.2x before 7.24.0 do not properly consider special characters during extraction of a pathname from a URL, which allows remote attackers to conduct data-injection attacks via a crafted URL, as demonstrated by a CRLF injection attack on the (1) IMAP, (2) POP3, or (3) SMTP protocol.

Record
CVE-2012-0036
Updated
2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2012-0076 No score

curl and libcurl 7.2x before 7.24.0 do not properly consider special characters during extraction of a pathname from a URL, which allows remote attackers to conduct data-injection attacks via a crafted URL, as demonstrated by a CRLF injection attack on the (1) IMAP, (2) POP3, or (3) SMTP protocol.

Record
EUVD-2012-0076
Updated
2026-11-03
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-xxw5-p895-cp2c No score

curl and libcurl 7.2x before 7.24.0 do not properly consider special characters during extraction...

curl and libcurl 7.2x before 7.24.0 do not properly consider special characters during extraction of a pathname from a URL, which allows remote attackers to conduct data-injection attacks via a crafted URL, as demonstrated by a CRLF injection attack on the (1) IMAP, (2) POP3, or (3) SMTP protocol.

Record
GHSA-xxw5-p895-cp2c
Weakness
CWE-89
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVCURL-CVE-2012-0036 No score

URL sanitization vulnerability

curl is vulnerable to a data injection attack for certain protocols through control characters embedded or percent-encoded in URLs.

When parsing URLs, libcurl's parser is liberal and only parses as little as possible and lets as much as possible through as long as it can figure out what to do.

In the specific process when libcurl extracts the file path part from a given URL, it did not always verify the data or escape control characters properly before it passed the file path on to the protocol-specific code that then would use it for its protocol business.

This passing through of control characters could be exploited by someone who would be able to pass in a handcrafted URL to libcurl. Lots of libcurl using applications let users enter URLs in one form or another and not all of these check the input carefully to prevent malicious ones.

A malicious user might pass in %0d%0a to get treated as CR LF by libcurl, and by using this fact a user can trick for example a POP3 client to delete a message instead of getting it or trick an SMTP server to send an unintended message.

This vulnerability can be used to fool libcurl with the following protocols: IMAP, POP3 and SMTP.

Both curl the command line tool and applications using the libcurl library are vulnerable.

Record
CURL-CVE-2012-0036
Updated
2026-11-02
OSV No score

curl and libcurl 7.2x before 7.24.0 do not properly consider special characters during extraction of a pathname from a URL, which allows remote attackers to conduct data-injection attacks via a crafted URL, as demonstrated by a CRLF injection attack on the (1) IMAP, (2) POP3, or (3) SMTP protocol.

Record
CVE-2012-0036
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVDEBIAN-CVE-2012-0036 No score

curl and libcurl 7.2x before 7.24.0 do not properly consider special characters during extraction of a pathname from a URL, which allows remote attackers to conduct data-injection attacks via a crafted URL, as demonstrated by a CRLF injection attack on the (1) IMAP, (2) POP3, or (3) SMTP protocol.

Record
DEBIAN-CVE-2012-0036
Updated
2026-11-02

Affected products

Affected packages

Affected packages
PackageAffectedFixed
curl
Debian:12
before 7.24.0-1
7.24.0-1
curl
Debian:13
before 7.24.0-1
7.24.0-1
curl
Debian:14
before 7.24.0-1
7.24.0-1
curl
Debian:5.0
From an advisory covering 2 CVEs
before 7.18.2-8lenny6, plus listed versions
7.18.2-87.18.2-8lenny27.18.2-8lenny37.18.2-8lenny47.18.2-8lenny5
7.18.2-8lenny6
curl
Debian:6.0
From an advisory covering 2 CVEs
before 7.21.0-2.1+squeeze1, plus listed versions
7.21.0-17.21.0-2
7.21.0-2.1+squeeze1

History

History
RecordedChangedSources
affected, facts
aliasesEUVD
first indexedCVE List, GitHub Advisories, NVD, OSV

Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.

In short

CVE-2012-0036 is a high vulnerability (CVSS 7.5) in Curl, published January 24, 2012. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 16.1%, the 96th percentile. Fixed in curl 7.24.0-1.

References

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