What is CVE-2018-16272?

CVE-2018-16272 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Samsung Galaxy Gear, classified under Improper Privilege Management. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2020-01-22.

How severe is CVE-2018-16272?

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

Privilege escalation in Samsung Galaxy Gear

CVE-2018-16272

The wpa_supplicant system service in Samsung Galaxy Gear series allows an unprivileged process to fully control the Wi-Fi interface, due to the lack of its D-Bus security policy configurations. This affects Tizen-based firmwares including Samsung Galaxy Gear series before build RE2.

Vulnerability class: Privilege Escalation

Published 2020-01-22 · 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: 0.016 (75.2th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 75th percentile — 75.2% 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

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-269 — Improper Privilege Management

References

media.defcon.org/DEF CON 26/DEF CON 26 presentations/Dongsung Kim and Hyoung Ke… (Exploit, Third Party Advisory)
www.youtube.com/watch (Exploit, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-16272?: CVE-2018-16272 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Samsung Galaxy Gear, classified under Improper Privilege Management. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2020-01-22.
How severe is CVE-2018-16272?: Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.