X.Org xdm 1.1.10, 1.1.11, and possibly other versions, when performing authentication using certain implementations of the crypt API function that can return NULL, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and crash) by attempting to log into an account whose password field contains invalid characters, as demonstrated using the crypt function from glibc 2.17 and later with (1) the "!" character in the salt portion of a password field or (2) a password that has been encrypted using DES or MD5 in FIPS-140 mode.
Weaknesses in this category are related to the design and implementation of data confidentiality and integrity. Frequently these deal with the use of encoding techniques, encryption libraries, and hashing algorithms. The weaknesses in this category could lead to a degradation of the quality data if they are not addressed.