Is CVE-2016-9435 exploited in the wild?

No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2016-9435 being exploited in the wild.

How severe is CVE-2016-9435?

Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 6.5, published 20 January 2017.

Which products and versions are affected?

tats w3m before 0.5.3+git20161009.

Is there a fix for CVE-2016-9435?

A patch was published on 2016-10-09: Fix committed to w3m repository Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.

How is CVE-2016-9435 attacked?

It is attacked over the network, in a network appliance.

Am I affected by CVE-2016-9435?

Check whether you run Opensuse Leap or Tats W3m. 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.

CVE-2016-9435: w3m uninitialized value use in HTMLtagproc1

CVE-2016-9435 · Severity: medium · CVSS 6.5 · Published 2017-01-20

w3m is a text-based web browser used to view websites in a terminal environment. A vulnerability in how it processes certain HTML tags allows a remote attacker to crash the browser by tricking a user into opening a specially crafted web page. This results in a denial-of-service, potentially disrupting the user's workflow or terminal session.

Technologies: Opensuse Leap. Vendors: Opensuse.

Quick answers

Is CVE-2016-9435 exploited in the wild?: No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2016-9435 being exploited in the wild.
How severe is CVE-2016-9435?: Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 6.5, published 20 January 2017.
Which products and versions are affected?: tats w3m before 0.5.3+git20161009.
Is there a fix for CVE-2016-9435?: A patch was published on 2016-10-09: Fix committed to w3m repository Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
How is CVE-2016-9435 attacked?: It is attacked over the network, in a network appliance.
Am I affected by CVE-2016-9435?: Check whether you run Opensuse Leap or Tats W3m. 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 vulnerability exists in the w3m text-based browser due to the use of uninitialized values within the HTMLtagproc1 function in file.c. Specifically, when processing <dd> tags, the application may attempt to access environment variables or stack values that have not been properly set if the tag is not preceded by a proper <dl> (definition list) context. An attacker can exploit this by providing a maliciously crafted HTML file that triggers a conditional jump or move based on these uninitialized values, leading to an application crash (Denial of Service). The issue was identified using Valgrind and fixed by ensuring a proper environment is pushed when encountering <dd> tags. Patch availability is confirmed in the 0.5.3+git20161009 release.

Affected products

tats w3m before 0.5.3+git20161009

Timeline

2016-08-17: disclosed: Issue reported on GitHub with Valgrind logs
2016-10-09: patched: Fix committed to w3m repository
2017-01-20: advisory: NVD advisory published

References

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