CVE-2018-16451 — The SMB parser in tcpdump before 4

The SMB parser in tcpdump before 4.9.3 has buffer over-reads in print-smb.c:print_trans() for \MAILSLOT\BROWSE and \PIPE\LANMAN.

01What is this vulnerability?

The SMB parser in tcpdump before 4.9.3 has buffer over-reads in print-smb.c:print_trans() for \MAILSLOT\BROWSE and \PIPE\LANMAN.

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
n	a / n/a	n/a

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

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

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

• Published: 2019-10-03T15:57:34.000Z
• Last modified: 2025-12-03T19:29:33.198Z

09References

• github.com — https://github.com/the-tcpdump-group/tcpdump/blob/tcpdump-4.9/CHANGES
• github.com — https://github.com/the-tcpdump-group/tcpdump/commit/96480ab95308cd9234b4f09b175e…
• lists.debian.org — https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/10/msg00015.html
• lists.opensuse.org — http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-10/msg00050.html
• lists.opensuse.org — http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-10/msg00053.html
• seclists.org — https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Oct/28
• www.debian.org — https://www.debian.org/security/2019/dsa-4547
• lists.fedoraproject.org — https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedorapro…
• lists.fedoraproject.org — https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedorapro…
• lists.fedoraproject.org — https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedorapro…
• support.apple.com — https://support.apple.com/kb/HT210788
• seclists.org — https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Dec/23
• seclists.org — http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2019/Dec/26
• security.netapp.com — https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20200120-0001/
• usn.ubuntu.com — https://usn.ubuntu.com/4252-2/
• usn.ubuntu.com — https://usn.ubuntu.com/4252-1/