the company only allows active Perl 5.12.00
So your company IT prefers to use a Perl version with known security problems (including remote code execution and stuff) because they don't want to risk that someone possibly, maybe, on the-off-chance of the moonphase being wrong, having to go in and fix a couple of bugs in old scripts?
I think your company IT is facing a classic XY problem. They are asking "Upgrading Perl *may* result in some additional work, so keeping the old version is the best option we have. What do we have to do to keep this old version running?", when really, the question should be (in my opinion): "What do we have to do to make sure we have the latest security updates".
Just in case, send them the link to the CVE database for Perl in writing. You don't want to be the one who gets the blame if the fit hits the shan, so to speak:
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-1885/Perl.html.
Maybe also clarify that there are quite a few nasty things that have since been fixed. For example:
- CVE-2012-5195: Heap-based buffer overflow in the Perl_repeatcpy function in util.c in Perl 5.12.x before 5.12.5, 5.14.x before 5.14.3, and 5.15.x before 15.15.5 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption and crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code via the 'x' string repeat operator.
- CVE-2013-1667: The rehash mechanism in Perl 5.8.2 through 5.16.x allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption and crash) via a crafted hash key.
- CVE-2014-4330: The Dumper method in Data::Dumper before 2.154, as used in Perl 5.20.1 and earlier, allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (stack consumption and crash) via an Array-Reference with many nested Array-References, which triggers a large number of recursive calls to the DD_dump function.
- CVE-2018-6913: Heap-based buffer overflow in the pack function in Perl before 5.26.2 allows context-dependent attackers to execute arbitrary code via a large item count.
Depending on what you are using Win32::OLE for, an attacker could basically create an Excel/Word/Powerpoint file that makes your Perl scripts execute arbitrary code like encrypting your data and then asking for some Bitcoins...
perl -e 'use Crypt::Digest::SHA256 qw[sha256_hex]; print substr(sha256_hex("the Answer To Life, The Universe And Everything"), 6, 2), "\n";'
Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
Please read these before you post! —
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
- a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
| |
For: |
|
Use: |
| & | | & |
| < | | < |
| > | | > |
| [ | | [ |
| ] | | ] |
Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.