web2py before 2.14.1, when using the standalone version, allows remote attackers to obtain environment variable values via a direct request to examples/template_examples/beautify. NOTE: this issue can be leveraged by remote attackers to gain administrative access.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2016-3952 is rated High Exploit Risk (68.1/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.08%). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Mandatory action: 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.
| EDB-ID | Source | Kind | Published | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | nvd_ref | exploit_tag | Exploit-DB ↗ |
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 | 0.40% | 1.08% | +0.68% |
| 2 | 2025-07-23 | 0.52% | 0.40% | -0.12% |
| 3 | 2025-05-18 | — | 0.52% | — |
Full EPSS history (11 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.8 | 3.0 | HIGH |
|
1.8 | 5.9 | [email protected] |
| 2.1 | 2.0 | LOW |
|
3.9 | 2.9 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2016-3952 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (web2py), 7 status rows across 7 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 4, ignored 1, needs-triage 1, released 1. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-3952 |
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://devco.re/blog/2017/01/03/web2py-unserialize-code-execution-CVE-2016-3957/ | Exploit Technical Description Third Party Advisory |
| https://github.com/web2py/web2py/commit/9706d125b42481178d2b423de245f5d2faadbf40 | Third Party Advisory |
| https://usn.ubuntu.com/4030-1/ |