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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2016-4021 json

The read_binary function in buffer.c in pgpdump before 0.30 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop…

published 2016-05-26 10 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2016-5027

cvss
7.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.8%
EPSS 1.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 78%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The read_binary function in buffer.c in pgpdump before 0.30 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and CPU consumption) via crafted input, as demonstrated by the \xa3\x03 string.

Patch / fix

  • pgpdump Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 0.31-0.1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-4021

  • pgpdump Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 0.28-1+deb8u1build0.14.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-4021

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-2016-4021 updated cvss 2.6

pgpdump: endless loop parsing specially crafted input

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    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

1.82% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 78% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • seclists.org http://seclists.org/bugtraq/2016/Apr/99 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • syss.de https://www.syss.de/fileadmin/dokumente/Publikationen/Advisories/SYSS-2016-030.txt referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 7.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.8 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-399 Resource Management Errors

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.