CVE-2017-16544 is a high-severity vulnerability in BusyBox versions up to 1.27.2, specifically within the tab autocomplete feature of its shell, affecting products like Canonical, Debian, Red Lion, and VMware. The flaw allows unsanitized filenames to execute escape sequences in the terminal, potentially leading to remote code execution, arbitrary file writes, or other attacks. With a CVSS score of 8.8, it presents a significant risk due to its network attack vector and low complexity, requiring only low privileges and no user interaction. While there is no evidence of active exploitation (not in KEV or Hot List), and no public exploit code in Metasploit, Nuclei, or ExploitDB, the vulnerability has garnered community discussion and media coverage, indicating awareness among security professionals.
| Vendor | Product | Version(s) | CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
<= 1.27.2CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:a:busybox:busybox:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | ||
8.0CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | ||
9.0CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | ||
6.0CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:o:vmware:esxi:6.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | ||
6.0CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:o:vmware:esxi:6.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:* |
CVSS version used by this source: 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.3 Bluesky, 0.1 Mastodon, and 0.2 GitHub mentions.
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.