What is CVE-2015-8916?

CVE-2015-8916 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Libarchive, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2016-09-20.

How severe is CVE-2015-8916?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.

Is CVE-2015-8916 known to be exploited?

1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

NULL pointer dereference in Libarchive

CVE-2015-8916

bsdtar in libarchive before 3.2.0 returns a success code without filling the entry when the header is a "split file in multivolume RAR," which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and crash) via a crafted rar file.

Published 2016-09-20 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.032 (87.8th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 88th percentile — 87.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.032 · newest: 0.032 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Libarchive
Canonical Ubuntu Linux — versions 12.04, 14.04, 15.10
Debian Linux — versions 7.0, 8.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-476 — NULL Pointer Dereference

Public proof-of-concept exploits

mrash/afl-cve

References

www.securityfocus.com/bid/91296 (vdb-entry)
www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3033-1 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-1844.html (vendor-advisory)
blog.fuzzing-project.org/47-Many-invalid-memory-access-issues-in-libarchive.html (Third Party Advisory)
www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/linuxbulletinjul2016-3090544.html
security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2015-8916 (Third Party Advisory)
github.com/libarchive/libarchive/issues/504
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/06/17/2 (mailing-list, Third Party Advisory)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/201701-03 (vendor-advisory)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/06/17/5 (mailing-list, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2015-8916?: CVE-2015-8916 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Libarchive, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2016-09-20.
How severe is CVE-2015-8916?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2015-8916 known to be exploited?: 1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.