CVE-2016-5417

Publication date 16 February 2017

Last updated 25 August 2025

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

Memory leak in the __res_vinit function in the IPv6 name server management code in libresolv in GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) before 2.24 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) by leveraging partial initialization of internal resolver data structures.

From the Ubuntu Security Team

Tim Ruehsen discovered that the getaddrinfo() implementation in the GNU C Library did not properly track memory allocations. An attacker could use this to cause a denial of service.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
eglibc	16.10 yakkety	Not in release
	16.04 LTS xenial	Not in release
	15.10 wily	Not in release
	14.04 LTS trusty	Not affected
	12.04 LTS precise	Not affected
glibc	16.10 yakkety	Not affected
	16.04 LTS xenial	Fixed 2.23-0ubuntu6
	15.10 wily	Not affected
	14.04 LTS trusty	Not in release
	12.04 LTS precise	Not in release

Notes

sbeattie

introduced in 2.22 commit 2212c1420c92a33b0e0bd9a34938c9814a56c0f7

Patch details

For informational purposes only. We recommend not to cherry-pick updates. How can I get the fixes?

Package	Patch details
glibc	Upstream: https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=glibc.git;h=5e7fdabd7df1fc6c56d104e61390bf5a6b526c38 Upstream: https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=glibc.git;h=317da342ba4417c30d985f5593d78bb1364a62c3

Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	7.5 · High
Attack vector	Network
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	None
User interaction	None
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	None
Integrity impact	None
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

References

Related Ubuntu Security Notices (USN)

USN-3239-1
GNU C Library vulnerabilities
21 March 2017