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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2016-9939 json

Crypto++ (aka cryptopp and libcrypto++) 5.6.4 contained a bug in its ASN.1 BER decoding routine.

published 2017-01-30 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2016-10726

cvss
7.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.2%
EPSS 4.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 91%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Crypto++ (aka cryptopp and libcrypto++) 5.6.4 contained a bug in its ASN.1 BER decoding routine. The library will allocate a memory block based on the length field of the ASN.1 object. If there is not enough content octets in the ASN.1 object, then the function will fail and the memory block will be zeroed even if its unused. There is a noticeable delay during the wipe for a large allocation.

Patch / fix

  • libcrypto++ Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.6.4-5

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-9939

  • libcrypto++ Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 5.6.1-6+deb8u3build0.14.04.1
  • libcrypto++ Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 5.6.1-9ubuntu0.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-9939

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • libcryptopp SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP3, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP2 5.6.5-1.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2021:3301-1

  • libcryptopp openSUSE Leap 15.3 5.6.5-1.6.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2021:3301-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2016-9939 updated cvss 5.3

cryptopp: DoS in ASN.1 parser due to octet processing

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

4.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 91% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 7.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.