CVE-2017-16997

HIGHNVD 7.87.8—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

Score 7.8 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: HIGH) published 2022-05-13. NVD baseline CVSS 7.8; sources differ by 0.0.

Triggered by: GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
Sources: epss, ghsa, nvd
7.8EG
EchelonGraph verdictPlan a fixSerious severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet.
  • High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS PROB: 2.9%CVSS: 7.8Exploit: None knownExposed services: Not assessed

A fix is available — apply it.

elf/dl-load.c in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) 2.19 through 2.26 mishandles RPATH and RUNPATH containing $ORIGIN for a privileged (setuid or AT_SECURE) program, which allows local users to gain privileges via a Trojan horse library in the current working directory, related to the fillin_rpath and decompose_rpath functions. This is associated with misinterpretion of an empty RPATH/RUNPATH token as the "./" directory. NOTE: this configuration of RPATH/RUNPATH for a privileged program is apparently very uncommon; most likely, no such program is shipped with any common Linux distribution.

CVSS v3
7.8
EG Score
7.8HIGHmedium confidence
EG Risk
41
EG Risk 41/100CISA 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
Severity78% × 45%
Exploitation3% × 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
2.9%
EPSS %ILE
86th
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 partial (CVSS below 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

December 18, 2017

Last Modified

June 17, 2026

Advisory Details (6)

Auto-updated Sep 30, 2026
Patch available. Sources: redhat.
genericMentions a patch (unverified)

#884615 - src:glibc: CVE-2017-16997: incorrect RPATH/RUNPATH handling for SUID binaries - Debian Bug report logs

https://bugs.debian.org/884615
redhatMentions a patch (unverified)

Affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:3092
redhatMentions a patch (unverified)
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2019:0327
generic

CVE-2017-16997 - PSIRT.COM

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/102228
generic

Aurelien Jarno - [PATCH] elf: Check for empty tokens before dynamic string token expansio

https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2017-12/msg00528.html
generic

22625 – (CVE-2017-16997) RPATH $ORIGIN replaced by PWD for AT_SECURE/SUID binaries or if /proc is not mounted (CVE-2017-16997)

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=22625

Patch Availability(2)

Vendor / EcosystemFix (by version range) / PatchReleasedSource
ubuntunscd (2.23-0ubuntu10) @ xenial2026-05-22ubuntu
redhatglibc-0:2.17-260.el72018-10-30redhat

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

(4 across 4 ecosystems)
Debian:11(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
glibc—
  • every version up to 2.25-6: fixed in 2.25-6
—
Debian:12(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
glibc—
  • every version up to 2.25-6: fixed in 2.25-6
—
Debian:13(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
glibc—
  • every version up to 2.25-6: fixed in 2.25-6
—
Debian:14(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
glibc—
  • every version up to 2.25-6: fixed in 2.25-6
—

Weakness Classification(1)

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

All Vendor Advisories

(2)

Every vendor that published an advisory referencing this CVE — pulled from our cve_vendor_advisories aggregation. Click any row for the vendor's original advisory page.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 7× in last 7d / 21× 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 159 total refreshes for this CVE.

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

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Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2017-16997?
CVE-2017-16997 is a high vulnerability published on December 18, 2017. elf/dl-load.c in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) 2.19 through 2.26 mishandles RPATH and RUNPATH containing $ORIGIN for a privileged (setuid or ATSECURE) program, which allows local users to gain privileges via a Trojan horse library in the current working directory, related to the…
When was CVE-2017-16997 disclosed?
CVE-2017-16997 was first published on December 18, 2017, 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-2017-16997 actively exploited?
CVE-2017-16997 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 2.9% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days (86th percentile of EPSS-scored CVEs).
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2017-16997?
CVE-2017-16997 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.8 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2017-16997?
A fix for CVE-2017-16997 is available: update to the fixed version the vendor names in its advisory.

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