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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.8

CVE-2017-12166 json

OpenVPN versions before 2.3.3 and 2.4.x before 2.4.4 are vulnerable to a buffer overflow vulnerability when key-method 1 is used, possibly…

published 2017-10-03 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-3742

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.6%
EPSS 3.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 89%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

OpenVPN versions before 2.3.3 and 2.4.x before 2.4.4 are vulnerable to a buffer overflow vulnerability when key-method 1 is used, possibly resulting in code execution.

Patch / fix

  • openvpn openvpn 2.3.18, 2.4.4
  • openvpn Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.4.4-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-12166

  • openvpn Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 2.3.2-7ubuntu3.2+esm2
  • openvpn Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 2.3.10-1ubuntu2.2+esm2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-12166

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

  • openvpn-openssl1 SLES 11-SECURITY 2.3.2-0.10.3.1
  • openvpn SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP3-TERADATA +2 more 2.0.9-143.47.3.1
  • openvpn SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for SAP 12 SP1 +8 more 2.3.8-16.20.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2017:3177-1SUSE-SU-2017:2838-1SUSE-SU-2017:2839-1

  • openvpn openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.5.3-1.2

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11128-1

  • openvpn Arch Linux 2.4.4-1

arch linux advisories AVG-420

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-2017-12166 updated cvss 8.1

openvpn: Incorrect bounds check in read_key() with 'key-method 1'

  • 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

3.63% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 89% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness

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.