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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2016-8681 json

The _dwarf_get_abbrev_for_code function in dwarf_util.c in libdwarf 20161001 and earlier allows remote attackers to cause a denial of servi…

published 2017-02-15 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2016-9520

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.1%
EPSS 2.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 81%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The _dwarf_get_abbrev_for_code function in dwarf_util.c in libdwarf 20161001 and earlier allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds read) by calling the dwarfdump command on a crafted file.

Patch / fix

  • dwarfutils Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 20161001-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-8681

  • libdwarf CBL-Mariner 2.0 0.9.0
  • libdwarf Azure Linux 3.0 0.9.0-1

azure linux advisories AZL-33326AZL-42084

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

  • libdwarf Arch Linux 20161124-1

arch linux advisories AVG-89

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-2016-8681 updated cvss 5.3

libdwarf: Heap based buffer overflow in _dwarf_get_abbrev_for_code

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 libdwarf, libdwarf-tools
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”

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

2.08% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 81% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • blogs.gentoo.org https://blogs.gentoo.org/ago/2016/10/06/libdwarf-heap-based-buffer-overflow-in-_dwarf_get_abbrev_for_code-dwarf_util-c-2/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness

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.