Quick answers
- Is CVE-2016-7974 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2016-7974 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2016-7974?
- Critical severity, with a CVSS score of 9.8, published 28 January 2017.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- tcpdump tcpdump before 4.9.0.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2016-7974?
- A patch was published on 2017-01-29: Debian released fixed version 4.9.0-1 Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2016-7974 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a software library.
- Am I affected by CVE-2016-7974?
- Check whether you run Tcpdump. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
A buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the IP parser of tcpdump versions prior to 4.9.0, specifically within multiple functions in the print-ip.c source file. The flaw is triggered during the decoding of IP protocol headers. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can exploit this by sending specially crafted packets to a network segment where tcpdump is performing live capture, or by tricking a user into opening a malicious pcap file. Successful exploitation can result in a denial of service (application crash) or the execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the tcpdump process. The issue is addressed in version 4.9.0.
Affected products
- tcpdump tcpdump before 4.9.0
Timeline
- 2017-01-27: advisory: NVD publication date
- 2017-01-29: patched: Debian released fixed version 4.9.0-1