What is CVE-2017-12990?

CVE-2017-12990 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Tcpdump, classified under Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition (Infinite Loop). CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2017-09-14.

How severe is CVE-2017-12990?

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

Out-of-bounds Read in Tcpdump

CVE-2017-12990

The ISAKMP parser in tcpdump before 4.9.2 could enter an infinite loop due to bugs in print-isakmp.c, several functions.

Published 2017-09-14 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.025 (84.4th percentile), scored 2026-10-01.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 84th percentile — 84.4% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.025 · newest: 0.025 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Tcpdump

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

security.gentoo.org/glsa/201709-23 (vendor-advisory)
support.apple.com/HT208221
www.debian.org/security/2017/dsa-3971 (vendor-advisory)
github.com/the-tcpdump-group/tcpdump/commit/c2ef693866beae071a24b45c49f9674af1d… (Patch, Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
www.securitytracker.com/id/1039307 (vdb-entry)
www.tcpdump.org/tcpdump-changes.txt (Vendor Advisory)
access.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2018:0705 (vendor-advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2017-12990?: CVE-2017-12990 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Tcpdump, classified under Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition (Infinite Loop). CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2017-09-14.
How severe is CVE-2017-12990?: Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.