What is CVE-2016-7166?

CVE-2016-7166 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Libarchive, classified under CWE-399. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2016-09-21.

How severe is CVE-2016-7166?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Libarchive

CVE-2016-7166

libarchive before 3.2.0 does not limit the number of recursive decompressions, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption and application crash) via a crafted gzip file.

Published 2016-09-21 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.016 (75.5th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 75th percentile — 75.5% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.016 · newest: 0.016 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Libarchive
Oracle Linux — versions 6, 7
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop — versions 7.0, 6.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Hpc Node — versions 7.0, 6.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Hpc Node Eus — versions 7.2
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server — versions 7.0, 6.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Aus — versions 7.2
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Eus — versions 7.2
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation — versions 7.0, 6.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-399

References

rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-1844.html (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/linuxbulletinjul2016-3090544.html (Third Party Advisory)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/09/08/18 (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
github.com/libarchive/libarchive/commit/6e06b1c89dd0d16f74894eac4cfc1327a06ee4a0 (Patch, Issue Tracking)
github.com/libarchive/libarchive/issues/660 (Patch, Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi (Issue Tracking)
rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-1850.html (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/09/08/15 (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/201701-03 (vendor-advisory)
bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi (Issue Tracking)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2016-7166?: CVE-2016-7166 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Libarchive, classified under CWE-399. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2016-09-21.
How severe is CVE-2016-7166?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.