# CVE-2022-38166: Denial of service in n/a

> An attacker can remotely trigger a crash in the F-Secure Endpoint Protection scanning engine, causing a denial of service.

- **Severity:** High 7.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 25 Nov 2022
- **Updated:** 29 Apr 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-84r8-w725-7j27

## What is CVE-2022-38166?

CVE-2022-38166 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 25 Nov 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In F-Secure Endpoint Protection for Windows and macOS before channel with Capricorn database 2022-11-22_07, the aerdl.dll unpacker handler crashes. This can lead to a scanning engine crash, triggerable remotely by an attacker for denial of service.

Weakness: CWE-248 (Uncaught Exception)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-38166?

It affects 1 product.


Products: F-Secure Elements Endpoint Protection.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-38166?

No fix has been published for CVE-2022-38166 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2022-38166 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-38166 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2022-28877](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-28877/): Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in F-Secure & WithSecure Windows Endpoint Products (medium 4.3)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-38166 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-38166 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 25 Nov 2022. 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-2022-38166 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. 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-2022-38166/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-38166/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-38166
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-38166
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-38166

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-38166/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.