CVE-2016-5018 Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel in Apache Tomcat

What is CVE-2016-5018?

CVE-2016-5018 is a critical vulnerability in Apache Tomcat, published on 10 Aug 2017. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

In Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.0.M9, 8.5.0 to 8.5.4, 8.0.0.RC1 to 8.0.36, 7.0.0 to 7.0.70 and 6.0.0 to 6.0.45 a malicious web application was able to bypass a configured SecurityManager via a Tomcat utility method that was accessible to web applications.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2016-5018?

20 open source packages ship an affected version, including org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-jasper, org.apache.tomcat:jasper and org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-jasper. It affects 15 products.

Products include Apache Tomcat, Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Debian Debian Linux, Netapp Oncommand Insight, Netapp Oncommand Shift, Netapp Snap Creator Framework and 9 more.

How do I fix CVE-2016-5018?

Upgrade org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-jasper to a fixed version for your release line: 6.0.47, 7.0.72, 8.0.37 or 8.5.5.

Is CVE-2016-5018 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2016-5018 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Apache Tomcat

• CVE-2025-24813 Apache Tomcat Path Equivalence Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2016-8735 Apache Tomcat Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2017-12617 Apache Tomcat Remote Code Execution Exploited High 8.1
• CVE-2017-12615 Apache Tomcat on Windows Remote Code Execution Exploited High 8.1
• CVE-2026-34486 Apache Tomcat Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data Exploited High 7.5

All Apache Tomcat vulnerabilities

Sources

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

Also known as GHSA-4v3g-g84w-hv7r, UBUNTU-CVE-2016-5018.