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Fencer Vulns
high 7.0

CVE-2016-4558 json

The BPF subsystem in the Linux kernel before 4.5.5 mishandles reference counts, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (use-…

published 2016-05-23 10 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2016-5545

cvss
7.0
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.9%
EPSS 0.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 58%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

The BPF subsystem in the Linux kernel before 4.5.5 mishandles reference counts, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (use-after-free) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted application on (1) a system with more than 32 Gb of memory, related to the program reference count or (2) a 1 Tb system, related to the map reference count.

Patch / fix

  • linux linux_kernel 4.4.11, 4.5.5
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.5.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-4558

  • linux Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.4.0-24.43
  • linux-raspi2 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.4.0-1012.16
  • linux-lts-xenial Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 4.4.0-24.43~14.04.1
  • linux-snapdragon Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.4.0-1015.18

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-4558

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

  • kernel-source openSUSE Tumbleweed 4.8.13-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10128-1

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-2016-4558 updated cvss 7.2

kernel: bpf: refcnt overflow

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 kernel-rt, mrg-rt-release, kernel-rt-trace, kernel-rt-vanilla, kernel-rt-firmware
    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

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (EDB-39773)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

0.86% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 58% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-39773 Linux Kernel (Ubuntu 16.04) - Reference Count Overflow Using BPF Maps dos, 2016-05-04

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.9 AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Technology feeds

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.