CVE-2016-3116

Exp

CRLF injection vulnerability in Dropbear SSH before 2016.72 allows remote authenticated users to bypass intended shell-command restrictions via crafted X11 forwarding data.

Published: 2016-03-22 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2016-3116 is rated High Exploit Risk (69.5/100): CVSS Medium severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 19.30%, 97th percentile). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

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

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2016-3116

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
40119 exploit_db edb 2016-03-03 Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2016-3116

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 25.58% 19.30% -6.28%
2 2026-05-14 27.58% 25.58% -2.01%
3 2026-03-04 — 27.58% —

Full EPSS history (40 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2016-3116

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.4 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.1 2.7 [email protected]
5.5 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:S)
A single authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 8.0 4.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2016-3116

OS Trackers for CVE-2016-3116

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2016-3116 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (dropbear), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-3116
gentoo normal CVE-2016-3116: 1 GLSA(s) (201607-08), 1 atom(s) (net-misc/dropbear); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2016-3116
ubuntu low CVE-2016-3116 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (dropbear), 11 status rows across 11 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, precise, trusty, upstream, wily, xenial, yakkety, zesty): ignored 5, not-affected 3, released 2, DNE 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-3116

NVD evaluator notes for CVE-2016-3116

Comment: <a href="https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/93.html">CWE-93: Improper Neutralization of CRLF Sequences ('CRLF Injection')</a>

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2016-3116

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
dropbear_ssh_project dropbear_ssh <= 2015.71 cpe:2.3:a:dropbear_ssh_project:dropbear_ssh:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2016-3116

cvelogic Threat Intelligence