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CVE-2016-8858

34
FAUCET Score

CVE-2016-8858 describes a denial-of-service vulnerability in OpenSSH versions 6.x and 7.x through 7.3. Attackers can exploit this by sending numerous duplicate KEXINIT requests, leading to excessive memory consumption. This high-severity vulnerability (CVSS 7.5) is easily exploitable over the network with low attack complexity, potentially causing service disruption. Despite its severity, OpenSSH upstream does not consider it a security issue, and there is no known active exploitation, publicly available exploit code, or significant community discussion beyond a single mention.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
6.8CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:openbsd:openssh:6.8:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
6.9CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:openbsd:openssh:6.9:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
7.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:openbsd:openssh:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
7.1CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:openbsd:openssh:7.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
7.2CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:openbsd:openssh:7.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

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
29.46%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
98.0%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-27
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.2946 is in the 97th percentile among its peer group of 51,551 CVEs.

Social Chatter

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 (1)

github_advisorypatch availablevia nvd_reference
View patch

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2016-8858Moderate

openssh: Memory exhaustion due to unregistered KEXINIT handler after receiving message

Oct 17, 2016

References

cvsweb.openbsd.org / cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/ssh/kex.c.diff
Issue TrackingVendor Advisory
cvsweb.openbsd.org / cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/ssh/kex.c
Issue TrackingVendor Advisory
bugzilla.redhat.com / show_bug.cgi
Issue Tracking
cert-portal.siemens.com / productcert/pdf/ssa-412672.pdf
ftp.openbsd.org / pub/OpenBSD/patches/6.0/common/013_ssh_kexinit.patch.sig
PatchVendor Advisory
github.com / openssh/openssh-portable/commit/ec165c392ca54317dbe3064a8c200de6531e89ad
Issue TrackingPatchThird Party Advisory
security.freebsd.org / advisories/FreeBSD-SA-16:33.openssh.asc
Third Party Advisory
security.gentoo.org / glsa/201612-18
Third Party Advisory
security.netapp.com / advisory/ntap-20180201-0001
Third Party Advisory
openwall.com / lists/oss-security/2016/10/19/3
Mailing ListThird Party Advisory
openwall.com / lists/oss-security/2016/10/20/1
Mailing ListThird Party Advisory
securityfocus.com / bid/93776
Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
securitytracker.com / id/1037057
Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry