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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2016-7916 json

Race condition in the environ_read function in fs/proc/base.c in the Linux kernel before 4.5.4 allows local users to obtain sensitive infor…

published 2016-11-16 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2016-8765

cvss
5.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 33%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Race condition in the environ_read function in fs/proc/base.c in the Linux kernel before 4.5.4 allows local users to obtain sensitive information from kernel memory by reading a /proc/*/environ file during a process-setup time interval in which environment-variable copying is incomplete.

Patch / fix

  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.5.4-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-7916

  • linux Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 3.13.0-106.153
  • linux Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.4.0-24.43
  • linux-raspi2 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.4.0-1012.16
  • linux-lts-vivid Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 3.19.0-78.86~14.04.1
  • 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-2016-7916

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-rt SLE Real Time 11 SP4 3.0.101.rt130-68.1
  • kernel-syms-rt SLE Real Time 11 SP4 3.0.101.rt130-68.1
  • kernel-rt_trace SLE Real Time 11 SP4 3.0.101.rt130-68.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Real Time 11 SP4 3.0.101.rt130-68.1
  • kernel-ec2 SLES 11 SP3-LTSS, SLE Point of Sale 11 SP3, OpenStack Cloud 5 +2 more 3.0.101-0.47.96.1
  • kernel-pae SLES 11 SP3-LTSS, SLE Point of Sale 11 SP3 3.0.101-0.47.96.1
  • kernel-xen SLES 11 SP3-LTSS, SLE Point of Sale 11 SP3, OpenStack Cloud 5 +2 more 3.0.101-0.47.96.1
  • kernel-syms SLES 11 SP3-LTSS, SLE Point of Sale 11 SP3, OpenStack Cloud 5 +2 more 3.0.101-0.47.96.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2017:1102-1SUSE-SU-2017:0494-1SUSE-SU-2017:0437-1SUSE-SU-2017:0333-1

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-2016-7916 updated cvss 2.3

kernel: proc: prevent accessing /proc/<pid>/environ until it's ready

  • 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
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    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

0.39% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 33% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 5.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.7 AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:N/A:N

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-362 Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization
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.