This vulnerability in glibc's nscd component arises when a not-found netgroup response cannot be cached, resulting in a null pointer dereference and subsequent crash of the nscd process. Introduced in version 2.15 with the addition of caching to nscd, the flaw impacts only the nscd binary and does not affect other parts of glibc. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 5.9, reflecting a network attack vector with high attack complexity and no privileges or user interaction required, causing an availability impact only.

The vulnerability can cause the nscd service to crash due to null pointer dereference, resulting in denial of service for name service caching. There is no impact on confidentiality or integrity. No known exploits have been reported in the wild.

Patch status is not yet confirmed — check the vendor advisory for current remediation guidance. Until a fix is available, consider disabling nscd if it is not essential, or monitor for crashes and restart the service as needed. Avoid relying on nscd for critical name service caching in affected versions.