CVE-2016-8742

Exp

The Windows installer that the Apache CouchDB team provides was vulnerable to local privilege escalation. All files in the install inherit the file permissions of the parent directory and therefore a non-privileged user can substitute any executable for the nssm.exe service launcher, or CouchDB batch or binary files. A subsequent service or server restart will then run that binary with administrator privilege. This issue affected CouchDB 2.0.0 (Windows platform only) and was addressed in CouchDB 2.0.0.1.

Published: 2018-02-12 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2016-8742 is rated High Exploit Risk (75.3/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 2.04%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +1.60% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. 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-2016-8742

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
40865 exploit_db edb 2016-12-05 Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2016-8742

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 0.44% 2.04% +1.60%
2 2025-03-17 0.06% 0.44% +0.38%
3 2023-03-07 — 0.06% —

Full EPSS history (4 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2016-8742

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.0 HIGH
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H 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: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: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:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 1.8 5.9 [email protected]
7.2 2.0 HIGH
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:C)
Complete confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:C)
Complete integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:C)
Complete availability impact.
 3.9 10.0 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2016-8742

OS Trackers for CVE-2016-8742

vendor priority summary link
ubuntu negligible CVE-2016-8742 negligible priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (couchedb), 4 status rows across 4 suites (artful, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 3, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-8742

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2016-8742

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
apache couchdb 2.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:apache:couchdb:2.0.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2016-8742

cvelogic Threat Intelligence