CVE-2016-2427

The AES-GCM specification in RFC 5084, as used in Android 5.x and 6.x, recommends 12 octets for the aes-ICVlen parameter field, which might make it easier for attackers to defeat a cryptographic protection mechanism and discover an authentication key via a crafted application, aka internal bug 26234568. NOTE: The vendor disputes the existence of this potential issue in Android, stating "This CVE was raised in error: it referred to the authentication tag size in GCM, whose default according to ASN.1 encoding (12 bytes) can lead to vulnerabilities. After careful consideration, it was decided that the insecure default value of 12 bytes was a default only for the encoding and not default anywhere else in Android, and hence no vulnerability existed.

Published: 2016-04-17 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2016-2427 is rated Low Risk (33.9/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.42%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2016-2427

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.06% 0.42% +0.36%
2 2023-03-07 0.89% 0.06% -0.83%
3 2022-02-04 — 0.89% —

Full EPSS history (3 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2016-2427

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.8 3.6 [email protected]
4.3 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 8.6 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2016-2427

OS Trackers for CVE-2016-2427

vendor priority summary link
ubuntu low CVE-2016-2427 low priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (android, bouncycastle), 16 status rows across 8 suites (artful, precise, trusty, upstream, wily, xenial, yakkety, zesty): not-affected 7, DNE 4, ignored 3, needs-triage 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-2427

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2016-2427

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
bouncycastle bc-java 1.54 cpe:2.3:a:bouncycastle:bc-java:1.54:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
google android 5.0 cpe:2.3:o:google:android:5.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
google android 5.0.1 cpe:2.3:o:google:android:5.0.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
google android 5.1 cpe:2.3:o:google:android:5.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
google android 5.1.0 cpe:2.3:o:google:android:5.1.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
google android 6.0 cpe:2.3:o:google:android:6.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
google android 6.0.1 cpe:2.3:o:google:android:6.0.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2016-2427

cvelogic Threat Intelligence