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CVE-2015-7978

23
FAUCET Score

CVE-2015-7978 describes a denial-of-service vulnerability affecting NTP versions before 4.2.8p6 and 4.3.0 before 4.3.90. A remote attacker can exploit this by sending an ntpdc relist command, leading to stack exhaustion due to recursive restriction list traversal. With a CVSS score of 7.5 (High), this vulnerability is easily exploitable over the network with no user interaction, potentially causing a complete service outage. While it has a high FAUCET Risk Score, there is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code, or significant community discussion or media coverage.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
<= 4.2.8CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:ntp:ntp:*:p5:*:*:*:*:*:*
4.3.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:ntp:ntp:4.3.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
4.3.1CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:ntp:ntp:4.3.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
4.3.2CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:ntp:ntp:4.3.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
4.3.3CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:ntp:ntp:4.3.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.0

7.5HIGH

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
NONE
Integrity Impact
NONE
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
3.9
Impact Score
3.6
CvssVersion
3.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
9.98%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
95.1%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-27
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0998 is in the 92nd percentile among its peer group of 51,506 CVEs.

Social Chatter

No social media mentions found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.1 Mastodon, and 0.4 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (3)

redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6Fixed in: ntp-0:4.2.6p5-10.el6
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7Fixed in: ntp-0:4.2.6p5-25.el7
View patch
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5Fixed in: ntp

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2015-7978Moderate

ntp: stack exhaustion in recursive traversal of restriction list

Jan 20, 2016

References

lists.fedoraproject.org / pipermail/package-announce/2016-February/177507.html
Third Party Advisory
lists.fedoraproject.org / pipermail/package-announce/2016-January/176434.html
Third Party Advisory
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00059.html
Third Party Advisory
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00060.html
Third Party Advisory
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2016-05/msg00020.html
Third Party Advisory
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2016-05/msg00038.html
Third Party Advisory
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2016-05/msg00048.html
Third Party Advisory
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2016-07/msg00026.html
Third Party Advisory
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2016-08/msg00042.html
Third Party Advisory
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-updates/2016-05/msg00114.html
Third Party Advisory
rhn.redhat.com / errata/RHSA-2016-0780.html
Third Party Advisory
rhn.redhat.com / errata/RHSA-2016-2583.html
Third Party Advisory
bto.bluecoat.com / security-advisory/sa113
Third Party Advisory
security.freebsd.org / advisories/FreeBSD-SA-16:09.ntp.asc
security.gentoo.org / glsa/201607-15
Third Party Advisory
security.netapp.com / advisory/ntap-20171031-0001
support.ntp.org / bin/view/Main/SecurityNotice
Vendor Advisory
kb.cert.org / vuls/id/718152
Third Party AdvisoryUS Government Resource
tools.cisco.com / security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20160127-ntpd
Third Party Advisory
debian.org / security/2016/dsa-3629
Third Party Advisory
oracle.com / technetwork/topics/security/linuxbulletinapr2016-2952096.html
securityfocus.com / bid/81962
Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
securitytracker.com / id/1034782
Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
ubuntu.com / usn/USN-3096-1
Third Party Advisory