CVE-2016-4079 Memory corruption in n/a

What is CVE-2016-4079?

CVE-2016-4079 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 25 Apr 2016. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

epan/dissectors/packet-pktc.c in the PKTC dissector in Wireshark 1.12.x before 1.12.11 and 2.0.x before 2.0.3 does not verify BER identifiers, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds write and application crash) via a crafted packet.

Weakness: CWE-119

Which versions are affected by CVE-2016-4079?

It affects 3 products.

Products include Debian Debian Linux, Oracle Solaris, Wireshark Wireshark.

How do I fix CVE-2016-4079?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.

Is CVE-2016-4079 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2016-4079 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux

• CVE-2015-3306 ProFTPD Improper Access Control Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2025-49113 RoundCube Webmail Deserialization of Untrusted Data Exploited Critical 9.9
• CVE-2026-24061 GNU InetUtils Argument Injection Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2025-39682 Linux Kernel Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2024-9680 Mozilla Firefox Use-After-Free Exploited Critical 9.8

All Debian Debian Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2016-4079, GHSA-qm2v-hmqj-w3r6, UBUNTU-CVE-2016-4079.