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CVE-2018-16396

30
FAUCET Score

CVE-2018-16396 is a high-severity vulnerability affecting Ruby versions before 2.3.8, 2.4.5, 2.5.2, and 2.6.0-preview3, as well as products from Canonical, Debian, and Red Hat. The flaw stems from Ruby's failure to properly taint strings derived from unpacking other tainted strings, potentially leading to security bypasses. With a CVSS score of 8.1, this vulnerability presents a high risk due to its network-based attack vector and high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. There is currently no evidence of active exploitation, no known public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), and minimal community discussion or media coverage.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
>= 2.3.0, <= 2.3.7CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
>= 2.4.0, <= 2.4.4CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
>= 2.5.0, <= 2.5.1CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
2.6.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:2.6.0:preview1:*:*:*:*:*:*
2.6.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:2.6.0:preview2:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.0

8.1HIGH

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

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
HIGH
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
2.2
Impact Score
5.9
CvssVersion
3.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
7.97%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
94.1%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-26
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0797 is in the 73rd percentile among its peer group of 8,914 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 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (23)

redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7Fixed in: ruby-0:2.0.0.648-36.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 Advanced Update SupportFixed in: ruby-0:2.0.0.648-37.el7_4
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 Telco Extended Update SupportFixed in: ruby-0:2.0.0.648-37.el7_4
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 Update Services for SAP SolutionsFixed in: ruby-0:2.0.0.648-37.el7_4
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 Extended Update SupportFixed in: ruby-0:2.0.0.648-38.el7_6
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6Fixed in: rh-ruby23-ruby-0:2.3.8-69.el6
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6Fixed in: rh-ruby24-ruby-0:2.4.5-91.el6
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7Fixed in: rh-ruby23-ruby-0:2.3.8-69.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7Fixed in: rh-ruby24-ruby-0:2.4.5-91.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7Fixed in: rh-ruby25-ruby-0:2.5.3-6.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 EUSFixed in: rh-ruby23-ruby-0:2.3.8-69.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 EUSFixed in: rh-ruby24-ruby-0:2.4.5-91.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 EUSFixed in: rh-ruby25-ruby-0:2.5.3-6.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 EUSFixed in: rh-ruby23-ruby-0:2.3.8-69.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 EUSFixed in: rh-ruby24-ruby-0:2.4.5-91.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 EUSFixed in: rh-ruby25-ruby-0:2.5.3-6.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 EUSFixed in: rh-ruby23-ruby-0:2.3.8-69.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 EUSFixed in: rh-ruby24-ruby-0:2.4.5-91.el7
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 EUSFixed in: rh-ruby25-ruby-0:2.5.3-6.el7
View patch
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5Fixed in: ruby
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6Fixed in: ruby
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Subscription Asset ManagerFixed in: ruby193
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Virtualization 4Fixed in: ruby

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2018-16396Moderate

ruby: Tainted flags are not propagated in Array#pack and String#unpack with some directives

Oct 17, 2018

References

lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2019-07/msg00036.html
access.redhat.com / errata/RHSA-2018:3729
Third Party Advisory
access.redhat.com / errata/RHSA-2018:3730
Third Party Advisory
access.redhat.com / errata/RHSA-2018:3731
Third Party Advisory
access.redhat.com / errata/RHSA-2019:2028
hackerone.com / reports/385070
Permissions RequiredThird Party Advisory
lists.debian.org / debian-lts-announce/2018/10/msg00020.html
Third Party Advisory
security.netapp.com / advisory/ntap-20190221-0002
Third Party Advisory
usn.ubuntu.com / 3808-1
Third Party Advisory
debian.org / security/2018/dsa-4332
Third Party Advisory
ruby-lang.org / en/news/2018/10/17/not-propagated-taint-flag-in-some-formats-of-pack-cve-2018-16396
Vendor Advisory
ruby-lang.org / en/news/2018/10/17/ruby-2-3-8-released
Release Notes
ruby-lang.org / en/news/2018/10/17/ruby-2-4-5-released
Release Notes
ruby-lang.org / en/news/2018/10/17/ruby-2-5-2-released
Release Notes
ruby-lang.org / en/news/2018/11/06/ruby-2-6-0-preview3-released
Release Notes
securitytracker.com / id/1042106
Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry