What is CVE-2018-16438?

CVE-2018-16438 is a high-severity vulnerability in Hdfgroup Hdf5, classified under Out-of-bounds Read. CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2018-09-04.

How severe is CVE-2018-16438?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.

Out-of-bounds Read in Hdfgroup Hdf5

CVE-2018-16438

An issue was discovered in the HDF HDF5 1.8.20 library. There is an out of bounds read in H5L_extern_query at H5Lexternal.c.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2018-09-04 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.018 (77.2th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 77th percentile — 77.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.018 · newest: 0.018 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Hdfgroup Hdf5 — versions 1.8.20

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-125 — Out-of-bounds Read

References

github.com/TeamSeri0us/pocs/tree/master/hdf5/h5stat (Exploit, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-16438?: CVE-2018-16438 is a high-severity vulnerability in Hdfgroup Hdf5, classified under Out-of-bounds Read. CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2018-09-04.
How severe is CVE-2018-16438?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.