Predictive Vulnerability Intelligence.

Product

  • Product
  • Pricing
  • Documentation

Company

  • About
  • Partnerships
  • Blog
  • Support

Legal

  • Terms
  • Privacy
  • Data Licensing

© 2026 FAUCET Technologies LLC. All rights reserved.

CVE-2017-12987

30
FAUCET Score

CVE-2017-12987 is a critical buffer over-read vulnerability (CWE-125) in the IEEE 802.11 parser of tcpdump versions prior to 4.9.2, affecting distributions like Debian and Red Hat. With a CVSS score of 9.8, it allows unauthenticated attackers to achieve high confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts over the network with low attack complexity. Despite its high severity and some community discussion, there is no evidence of active exploitation, Metasploit modules, or ExploitDB entries, and it is not listed in CISA's KEV catalog.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
<= 4.9.1CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:tcpdump:tcpdump:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
9.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
10.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
7.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_desktop:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
7.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_server:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.1

9.8CRITICAL

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

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
3.9
Impact Score
5.9
CvssVersion
3.1

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
3.28%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
87.2%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-27
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0328 is in the 79th percentile among its peer group of 36,897 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.3 Bluesky, 0.3 Mastodon, and 2.4 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

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 (4)

github_advisorypatch availablevia nvd_reference
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7Fixed in: tcpdump-14:4.9.2-3.el7
View patch
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5Fixed in: tcpdump
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6Fixed in: tcpdump

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2017-12987Low

tcpdump: Buffer over-read in print-802_11.c:parse_elements() in IEEE 802.11 parser

Sep 13, 2017

References

access.redhat.com / errata/RHEA-2018:0705
Third Party Advisory
github.com / the-tcpdump-group/tcpdump/commit/2ecb9d2c67d9119250c54811a6ce4d0f2ddf44f1
Issue TrackingThird Party Advisory
github.com / the-tcpdump-group/tcpdump/commit/99798bd9a41bd3d03fdc1e949810a38967f20ed3
Issue TrackingPatchThird Party Advisory
security.gentoo.org / glsa/201709-23
Third Party Advisory
support.apple.com / HT208221
Third Party Advisory
debian.org / security/2017/dsa-3971
Third Party Advisory
securitytracker.com / id/1039307
Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
tcpdump.org / tcpdump-changes.txt
Vendor Advisory