# CVE-2016-2517: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can cause denial of service by preventing subsequent authentication in NTP, requiring knowledge of control or request keys.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 30 Jan 2017
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2016-2517, GHSA-3gmh-m5h5-5234, UBUNTU-CVE-2016-2517

## What is CVE-2016-2517?

CVE-2016-2517 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Ntp Ntp, published on 30 Jan 2017. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

NTP before 4.2.8p7 and 4.3.x before 4.3.92 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (prevent subsequent authentication) by leveraging knowledge of the controlkey or requestkey and sending a crafted packet to ntpd, which changes the value of trustedkey, controlkey, or requestkey.  NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of a CVE-2016-2516 regression.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2016-2517?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Ntp Ntp.

## How do I fix CVE-2016-2517?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2016-2517 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2016-2517 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Ntp Ntp

- [CVE-2018-12327](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-12327/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2017-6460](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-6460/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2019-11331](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-11331/): Other in n/a (high 8.1)
- [CVE-2017-6451](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-6451/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2017-6452](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-6452/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 7.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2016-2517 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2016-2517 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Ntp Ntp, published on 30 Jan 2017. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2016-2517 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Ntp Ntp. 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-2016-2517/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-2517/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2016-2517
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2016-2517
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2016-2517

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-2517/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.