# CVE-2015-3216: Race condition in n/a

> Remote attackers can crash multithreaded TLS servers via a race condition in the OpenSSL PRNG lock implementation, causing denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.3 (`AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 7 Jul 2015
- **Updated:** 6 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-3522-gq68-vxp6

## What is CVE-2015-3216?

CVE-2015-3216 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Openssl Openssl, published on 7 Jul 2015. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Race condition in a certain Red Hat patch to the PRNG lock implementation in the ssleay_rand_bytes function in OpenSSL, as distributed in openssl-1.0.1e-25.el7 in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 and other products, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) by establishing many TLS sessions to a multithreaded server, leading to use of a negative value for a certain length field.

Weakness: CWE-362 (Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization), CWE-189

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2015-3216?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Openssl Openssl, Redhat Enterprise Linux.

## How do I fix CVE-2015-3216?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2015-3216 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2015-3216 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Openssl Openssl

- [CVE-2009-3245](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-3245/): Null dereference in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2006-3738](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2006-3738/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2026-63073](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-63073/): Untrusted Sender DN Used as Format String in CMP Response Validation (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2016-6309](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-6309/): Use after free in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2016-0799](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-0799/): Integer overflow in n/a (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2015-3216 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2015-3216 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Openssl Openssl, published on 7 Jul 2015. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2015-3216 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Openssl Openssl. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-3216/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-3216/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2015-3216
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-3216
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2015-3216

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-3216/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.