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Unrated severityNVD Advisory· Published Oct 3, 2019· Updated Aug 5, 2024

CVE-2018-16301

CVE-2018-16301

Description

Buffer overflow in tcpdump's -F option allows denial of service or possible code execution via crafted 4GB input file.

AI Insight

LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.

Buffer overflow in tcpdump's -F option allows denial of service or possible code execution via crafted 4GB input file.

Vulnerability

A buffer overflow vulnerability exists in tcpdump before version 4.99.0 in the read_infile() function in tcpdump.c. The issue occurs when parsing command-line arguments via the -F option, which reads a file containing filter expressions. If an attacker provides a crafted file of approximately 4 GB or larger, the insufficient bounds checking leads to a buffer overflow. This affects all versions prior to 4.99.0 [1].

Exploitation

Exploitation requires the attacker to have local filesystem access to create a file of at least 4 GB. The attacker then invokes tcpdump with the -F option pointing to that crafted file. No special privileges or network access are needed beyond command-line execution. The vulnerability is triggered during the parsing of the file contents within read_infile().

Impact

Successful exploitation results in a buffer overflow, which could lead to a denial of service (crash) or potentially arbitrary code execution depending on the environment and memory layout. The impact is process-level and may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user running tcpdump.

Mitigation

The issue is fixed in tcpdump version 4.99.0, released on June 9, 2021 [1]. Users should upgrade to this version or later. No workaround is available other than avoiding the use of the -F option with untrusted input files.

References
  1. Add CVE-2018-16301 to CHANGES. [skip ci] · the-tcpdump-group/tcpdump@ad7c25b

AI Insight generated on May 26, 2026. Synthesized from this CVE's description and the cited reference URLs; citations are validated against the source bundle.

Affected products

80

Patches

0

No patches discovered yet.

Vulnerability mechanics

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References

1

News mentions

0

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