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CVE-2018-16301

26
FAUCET Score

CVE-2018-16301 is a buffer overflow vulnerability in the command-line argument parser of tcpdump versions prior to 4.99.0, specifically within the read_infile() function. An attacker can trigger this by creating a 4GB file on the local filesystem and providing its name via the -F command-line argument. With a CVSS score of 7.8 (High), this vulnerability allows for high impact to confidentiality, integrity, and availability, requiring local access and user interaction to exploit. There is currently no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), or significant community discussion or media coverage surrounding this CVE.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
< 4.99.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:tcpdump:tcpdump:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.1

7.8HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
1.8
Impact Score
5.9
CvssVersion
3.1

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
0.63%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
46.4%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-25
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0063 is in the 44th percentile among its peer group of 11,616 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.2 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.3 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (9)

microsoftpatch availablevia msrc
Product: CBL Mariner 2.0 ARMFixed in: 4.99.1-1
microsoftpatch availablevia msrc
Product: 16953-16823Fixed in: 4.99.1-1
microsoftpatch availablevia msrc
Product: 16952-16820Fixed in: 4.99.1-1
microsoftpatch availablevia msrc
Product: cm1 tcpdump 4.99.1-1 on CBL Mariner 1.0Fixed in: 4.99.1-1
microsoftpatch availablevia msrc
Product: cbl2 tcpdump 4.99.1-1 on CBL Mariner 2.0Fixed in: 4.99.1-1
microsoftpatch availablevia msrc
Product: CBL Mariner 1.0 x64Fixed in: 4.99.1-1
microsoftpatch availablevia msrc
Product: CBL Mariner 1.0 ARMFixed in: 4.99.1-1
microsoftpatch availablevia msrc
Product: CBL Mariner 2.0 x64Fixed in: 4.99.1-1
redhatvendor investigatingvia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8Fixed in: tcpdump

Vendor Advisories (3)

microsoft2022-Feb/CVE-2018-16301

CVE-2018-16301

Feb 8, 2022
microsoft2019-Oct/CVE-2018-16301Important

The command-line argument parser in tcpdump before 4.99.0 has a buffer overflow in tcpdump.c:read_infile(). To trigger this vulnerability the attacker needs to create a 4GB file on the local filesystem and to specify the file name as the value of the -F command-line argument of tcpdump.

Oct 8, 2019
redhatCVE-2018-16301Low

tcpdump: Buffer overflow in the -F command line argument parser

Sep 30, 2019

References

github.com / the-tcpdump-group/tcpdump/commit/ad7c25bc0decf96dc7768c9e903734d38528b1bd