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Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2016-3697 json

Privilege Elevation in runc

published 2016-06-01 10 y ago modified 2026-09-10 1 mo ago also GHSA-q3j5-32m5-58c2 , GO-2021-0070 , EUVD-2021-2563

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 33%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

libcontainer/user/user.go in runC before 0.1.0, as used in Docker before 1.11.2, improperly treats a numeric UID as a potential username, which allows local users to gain privileges via a numeric username in the password file in a container.

Patch / fix

  • go github.com/opencontainers/runc 0.1.0
  • runc Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 0.1.0+dfsg-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-3697

  • docker RHEL 7 EXTRAS_OTHER 1.10.3-57.el7
  • docker-common RHEL 7 EXTRAS_OTHER 1.10.3-57.el7
  • docker-selinux RHEL 7 EXTRAS_OTHER 1.10.3-57.el7
  • docker-logrotate RHEL 7 EXTRAS_OTHER 1.10.3-57.el7
  • docker-lvm-plugin RHEL 7 EXTRAS_OTHER 1.10.3-57.el7
  • docker-v1.10-migrator RHEL 7 EXTRAS_OTHER 1.10.3-57.el7
  • docker-novolume-plugin RHEL 7 EXTRAS_OTHER 1.10.3-57.el7
  • docker-rhel-push-plugin RHEL 7 EXTRAS_OTHER 1.10.3-57.el7

red hat advisories RHSA-2016:2634RHSA-2016:1034

  • docker-stable SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES for SAP 15 SP3 +12 more 24.0.9_ce-150000.1.25.1
  • docker SLE Module for Containers 12, OpenStack Cloud 6 1.10.3-66.1
  • docker-stable SLES LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5-LTSS 24.0.9_ce-1.20.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:03545-1SUSE-SU-2025:03540-1SUSE-SU-2016:1159-1

  • docker-stable openSUSE Tumbleweed 24.0.9_ce-15.1
  • docker openSUSE Tumbleweed 1.12.3-4.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2025:15589-1openSUSE-SU-2024:10532-1

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-2016-3697 updated cvss 6.0

docker: privilege escalation via confusion of usernames and UIDs

  • Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise 3 Security
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extras docker 1.9.1-40.el7, docker 1.10.3-57.el7, docker-common 1.9.1-40.el7, docker-common 1.10.3-57.el7, docker-selinux 1.9.1-40.el7, docker-selinux 1.10.3-57.el7, +7 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2016:2634

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

0.39% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 33% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 2.1 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/opencontainers/runc
<0.1.0
0.1.0

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls
  • CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management
Technology feeds

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.