Skip to content
Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2016-2521 json

Untrusted search path vulnerability in the WiresharkApplication class in ui/qt/wireshark_application.cpp in Wireshark 1.12.x before 1.12.10…

published 2016-02-28 10 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2016-3599

cvss
7.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 34%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Untrusted search path vulnerability in the WiresharkApplication class in ui/qt/wireshark_application.cpp in Wireshark 1.12.x before 1.12.10 and 2.0.x before 2.0.2 on Windows allows local users to gain privileges via a Trojan horse riched20.dll.dll file in the current working directory, related to use of QLibrary.

Patch / fix

  • wireshark Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 2.6.3-1~ubuntu14.04.1
  • wireshark Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 2.6.3-1~ubuntu16.04.1
  • wireshark Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 2.6.3-1~ubuntu18.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-2521

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2016-2521 updated cvss 4.3

wireshark: DLL hijacking vulnerability (wnpa-sec-2016-01)

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 wireshark Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 wireshark, wireshark-gnome Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 wireshark, wireshark-gnome
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.40% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 34% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 7.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.