CVE-2016-5293 Path traversal in Firefox

What is CVE-2016-5293?

CVE-2016-5293 is a medium-severity path traversal vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 11 Jun 2018. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

When the Mozilla Updater is run, if the Updater's log file in the working directory points to a hardlink, data can be appended to an arbitrary local file. This vulnerability requires local system access. Note: this issue only affects Windows operating systems. This vulnerability affects Firefox ESR < 45.5 and Firefox < 50.

Weakness: CWE-20

Which versions are affected by CVE-2016-5293?

It affects 2 products.

Products include Debian Debian Linux, Mozilla Firefox.

How do I fix CVE-2016-5293?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

Upgrade, and resolve every user-supplied path against an allowed base folder before opening it. More about Path traversal.

Is CVE-2016-5293 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2016-5293 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 GHSA-4m4x-qm8m-cxqj.