What is CVE-2016-4331?

CVE-2016-4331 is a high-severity vulnerability in Hdfgroup Hdf5, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 8.6/10. Published 2016-11-18.

How severe is CVE-2016-4331?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.6 out of 10.

Buffer overflow in Hdfgroup Hdf5

CVE-2016-4331

When decoding data out of a dataset encoded with the H5Z_NBIT decoding, the HDF5 1.8.16 library will fail to ensure that the precision is within the bounds of the size leading to arbitrary code execution.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2016-11-18 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.6 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.008 (53.6th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 54th percentile — 53.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.008 · newest: 0.008 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Hdfgroup Hdf5 — versions 1.8.16

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-787 — Out-of-bounds Write

References

www.talosintelligence.com/reports/TALOS-2016-0177/ (Technical Description, Exploit, Third Party Advisory)
www.securityfocus.com/bid/94411 (vdb-entry)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/201701-13 (vendor-advisory)
www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3727 (vendor-advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2016-4331?: CVE-2016-4331 is a high-severity vulnerability in Hdfgroup Hdf5, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 8.6/10. Published 2016-11-18.
How severe is CVE-2016-4331?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.6 out of 10.