A denial-of-service vulnerability has been identified in the libsoup HTTP client library. This flaw can be triggered when a libsoup client receives a 401 (Unauthorized) HTTP response containing a specifically crafted domain parameter within the WWW-Authenticate header. Processing this malformed header can lead to a crash of the client application using libsoup. An attacker could exploit this by setting up a malicious HTTP server. If a users application using the vulnerable libsoup library connects to this malicious server, it could result in a denial-of-service. Successful exploitation requires tricking a users client application into connecting to the attackers malicious server.
A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit.