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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2016-8688 json

The mtree bidder in libarchive 3.2.1 does not keep track of line sizes when extending the read-ahead, which allows remote attackers to caus…

published 2017-02-15 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2016-9527

cvss
5.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.0%
EPSS 2.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 80%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The mtree bidder in libarchive 3.2.1 does not keep track of line sizes when extending the read-ahead, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a crafted file, which triggers an invalid read in the (1) detect_form or (2) bid_entry function in libarchive/archive_read_support_format_mtree.c.

Patch / fix

  • libarchive Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.2.1-5

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-8688

  • libarchive Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 3.1.2-7ubuntu2.4
  • libarchive Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 3.1.2-11ubuntu0.16.04.3

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-8688

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

  • libarchive SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for SAP 12 SP1, SLES for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 +6 more 3.1.2-25.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2016:2911-1

  • bsdtar openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.2.2-2.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10127-1

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-2016-8688 updated cvss 4.8

libarchive: heap based buffer overflow in detect_form (archive_read_support_format_mtree.c)

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 bsdtar, bsdcpio, libarchive
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 libarchive
    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

1.98% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 80% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 5.5 CVSS:3.0/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.