What is CVE-2016-9540?

CVE-2016-9540 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Libtiff, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2016-11-22.

How severe is CVE-2016-9540?

Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.

Buffer overflow in Libtiff

CVE-2016-9540

tools/tiffcp.c in libtiff 4.0.6 has an out-of-bounds write on tiled images with odd tile width versus image width. Reported as MSVR 35103, aka "cpStripToTile heap-buffer-overflow."

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2016-11-22 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.036 (89.2th percentile), scored 2026-10-02.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 89th percentile — 89.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.036 · newest: 0.036 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Libtiff — versions 4.0.6

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

github.com/vadz/libtiff/commit/5ad9d8016fbb60109302d558f7edb2cb2a3bb8e3 (Patch, Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
www.securityfocus.com/bid/94747 (vdb-entry)
rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017-0225.html (vendor-advisory)
www.securityfocus.com/bid/94484 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry)
www.debian.org/security/2017/dsa-3762 (vendor-advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2016-9540?: CVE-2016-9540 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Libtiff, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2016-11-22.
How severe is CVE-2016-9540?: Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.