CVE-2016-5180

CRITICALNVD 9.89.8—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

Score 9.8 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: CRITICAL) published 2022-05-14. NVD baseline CVSS 9.8; sources differ by 0.0.

Triggered by: GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
Sources: epss, ghsa, nvd
Trending — 3 sources updated this week
9.8EG
EchelonGraph verdictPlan a fixSerious severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet.
  • High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS PROB: 8.6%CVSS: 9.8Exploit: None knownExposed services: Not assessed

A fix is available — apply it.

Heap-based buffer overflow in the ares_create_query function in c-ares 1.x before 1.12.0 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds write) or possibly execute arbitrary code via a hostname with an escaped trailing dot.

CVSS v3
9.8
EG Score
9.8CRITICALmedium confidence
EG Risk
52
EG Risk 52/100CISA SSVC

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity98% × 45%
Exploitation9% × 40%
Automatability30% × 15%
CISA SSVC: Track at low or medium mission impact; Track* or Attend at high (mission-essential systems).
Action: A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low or medium mission impact and sooner than that at high.
EPSS PROB
8.6%
EPSS %ILE
94th
KEV
Not listed

CISA SSVCTrack at low or medium mission impact; Track* or Attend at high (mission-essential systems).

A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low or medium mission impact and sooner than that at high.

Exploitation none (no KEV listing, exploit record or EPSS ≥ 50%) · Automatable unknown (not published for this CVE) · Technical impact total (CVSS ≥ 9.0). Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it: high means the affected system is essential to your organisation's mission, or its compromise could cause irreversible harm to people. CISA's decision table

Published

October 3, 2016

Last Modified

June 17, 2026

Advisory Details (8)

Auto-updated Sep 30, 2026
🔬 Proof of concept available. Patch available.
generic
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017-0002.html
generic

Android Security Bulletin—January 2017  |  Android Open Source Project

https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2017-01-01.html
generic

c-ares: Heap-based buffer overflow (GLSA 201701-28) — Gentoo security

https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201701-28
generic

Chrome Releases: Stable Channel Update for Chrome OS

https://googlechromereleases.blogspot.in/2016/09/stable-channel-updates-for-chrome-os.html
generic🟡 PoC Available

ares_create_query single byte out of buffer write | c-ares: a modern asynchronous DNS resolver

https://c-ares.haxx.se/adv_20160929.html
generic
https://c-ares.haxx.se/CVE-2016-5180.patch
generic

CVE-2016-5180 - PSIRT.COM

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/93243
generic

[SECURITY] [DSA 3682-1] c-ares security update

http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3682

Vendor Advisories for CVE-2016-5180(1)

These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.

Patch Availability(2)

Vendor / EcosystemFix (by version range) / PatchReleasedSource
ubuntulibc-ares2 (1.11.0-1ubuntu0.1) @ yakkety2026-05-20ubuntu
redhatrh-nodejs4-nodejs-0:4.6.2-4.el72017-01-02redhat

Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.

Affected Packages

(12 across 11 ecosystems)
Alpine:v3.6(2)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
c-ares—
  • every version up to 1.12.0-r0: fixed in 1.12.0-r0
—
nodejs—
  • every version up to 6.8.0-r0: fixed in 6.8.0-r0
—
Alpine:v3.2(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
c-ares—
  • every version up to 1.12.0-r0: fixed in 1.12.0-r0
—
Alpine:v3.3(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
c-ares—
  • every version up to 1.12.0-r0: fixed in 1.12.0-r0
—
Alpine:v3.4(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
c-ares—
  • every version up to 1.12.0-r0: fixed in 1.12.0-r0
—
Alpine:v3.5(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
c-ares—
  • every version up to 1.12.0-r0: fixed in 1.12.0-r0
—
Debian:11(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
c-ares—
  • every version up to 1.12.0-1: fixed in 1.12.0-1
—
Debian:12(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
c-ares—
  • every version up to 1.12.0-1: fixed in 1.12.0-1
—
Debian:13(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
c-ares—
  • every version up to 1.12.0-1: fixed in 1.12.0-1
—
Debian:14(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
c-ares—
  • every version up to 1.12.0-1: fixed in 1.12.0-1
—
Debian:7(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
c-ares1.9.1-3
  • every version up to 1.9.1-3+deb7u1: fixed in 1.9.1-3+deb7u1
—
Debian:8(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
c-ares1.10.0-2
  • every version up to 1.10.0-2+deb8u1: fixed in 1.10.0-2+deb8u1
—

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

Additional Vendor Advisories

(1)

Vendors that published advisories for this CVE beyond the curated set above. Broader coverage but minimal per-row detail — click through for the original advisory.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 6× in last 7d / 20× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

Showing the most recent 100 of 168 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-10-05 17:38 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-10-04 06:04 UTCOSV refresh
  3. 2026-10-03 14:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-10-01 19:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-09-30 14:58 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-09-30 09:14 UTCEG score recompute
  7. 2026-09-28 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-09-27 13:40 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-09-26 15:53 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-09-26 15:53 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-09-24 13:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-09-23 13:41 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-09-19 15:35 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-09-18 19:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-09-17 19:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  16. 2026-09-15 03:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-09-14 20:14 UTCOSV refresh
  18. 2026-09-12 14:55 UTCEPSS rescore
  19. 2026-09-10 09:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-09-07 15:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-09-04 13:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-09-02 14:07 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-09-01 03:31 UTCEPSS rescore
  24. 2026-08-30 19:12 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-08-27 14:20 UTCEPSS rescore
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-08-26 19:46 UTCOSV refresh
  2. 2026-08-26 14:41 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-08-25 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-08-23 00:13 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-08-21 23:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-08-19 16:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-08-18 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-08-17 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-08-16 14:51 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-08-16 02:09 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-08-15 01:25 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-08-12 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-08-11 13:36 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-08-10 10:09 UTCOSV refresh
  15. 2026-08-09 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  16. 2026-08-08 16:32 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-08-06 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  18. 2026-08-05 19:12 UTCEPSS rescore
  19. 2026-08-04 15:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-08-04 10:32 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-08-02 02:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-08-01 04:11 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-07-30 16:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  24. 2026-07-30 01:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-07-28 15:31 UTCEPSS rescore
  26. 2026-07-26 14:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  27. 2026-07-25 14:13 UTCEPSS rescore
  28. 2026-07-25 10:41 UTCOSV refresh
  29. 2026-07-23 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  30. 2026-07-23 01:23 UTCEG score recompute
  31. 2026-07-22 22:02 UTCEG score recompute
  32. 2026-07-22 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  33. 2026-07-21 15:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  34. 2026-07-21 15:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  35. 2026-07-20 17:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  36. 2026-07-19 14:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  37. 2026-07-19 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  38. 2026-07-19 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  39. 2026-07-18 10:00 UTCEPSS rescore
  40. 2026-07-18 10:00 UTCEPSS rescore
  41. 2026-07-16 16:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  42. 2026-07-16 16:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  43. 2026-07-15 16:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  44. 2026-07-15 16:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  45. 2026-07-15 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  46. 2026-07-15 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  47. 2026-07-13 22:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  48. 2026-07-12 05:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  49. 2026-07-12 05:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  50. 2026-07-11 08:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  51. 2026-07-09 19:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  52. 2026-07-08 15:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  53. 2026-07-08 05:05 UTCOSV refresh
  54. 2026-07-07 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  55. 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  56. 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  57. 2026-07-06 02:20 UTCEPSS rescore
  58. 2026-07-06 02:20 UTCEPSS rescore
  59. 2026-07-05 02:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  60. 2026-07-04 06:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  61. 2026-07-01 15:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  62. 2026-06-30 23:19 UTCEPSS rescore
  63. 2026-06-29 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  64. 2026-06-28 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  65. 2026-06-28 04:53 UTCEPSS rescore
  66. 2026-06-27 03:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  67. 2026-06-27 03:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  68. 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  69. 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  70. 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  71. 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  72. 2026-06-23 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
  73. 2026-06-22 14:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  74. 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  75. 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore

Related CVEs(same product + same vendor + same CWE)

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2016-5180?
CVE-2016-5180 is a critical vulnerability published on October 3, 2016. Heap-based buffer overflow in the arescreatequery function in c-ares 1.x before 1.12.0 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds write) or possibly execute arbitrary code via a hostname with an escaped trailing dot.
When was CVE-2016-5180 disclosed?
CVE-2016-5180 was first published on October 3, 2016, with the most recent update on June 17, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2016-5180 actively exploited?
CVE-2016-5180 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 8.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days (94th percentile of EPSS-scored CVEs).
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2016-5180?
CVE-2016-5180 has a CVSS v3 base score of 9.8 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2016-5180?
A fix for CVE-2016-5180 is available: update to the fixed version the vendor names in its advisory. The vendor advisories EchelonGraph has for CVE-2016-5180 are linked in the Vendor Advisories panel on this page.

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