SARA / Free Tools / CVE / CVE-2018-16301

CVE-2018-16301 — The command-line argument parser in tcpdump before 4

The command-line argument parser in tcpdump before 4.99.0 has a buffer overflow in tcpdump.c:read_infile(). To trigger this vulnerability the attacker needs to create a 4GB file on the local filesystem and to specify the file name as the value of the -F command-line argument of t

CVSS
7.8 HIGH
EPSS
0.63% (top 51.60%)
CWE
—
Published
2019-10-03T16:15:12.693
Last modified
2026-10-08T22:16:45.897
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

01What is this vulnerability?

The command-line argument parser in tcpdump before 4.99.0 has a buffer overflow in tcpdump.c:read_infile(). To trigger this vulnerability the attacker needs to create a 4GB file on the local filesystem and to specify the file name as the value of the -F command-line argument of tcpdump.

02Affected products

No structured affected-product list available — see references below for vendor advisories.

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

09References

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