CVE-2016-4303

CRITICALNVD 9.89.8—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

Score 9.8 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: CRITICAL) published 2022-05-13. NVD baseline CVSS 9.8; sources differ by 0.0.

Triggered by: GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
Sources: epss, ghsa, nvd
Trending — 3 sources updated this week
9.8EG
EchelonGraph verdictPlan a fixSerious severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet.
  • High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS PROB: 7%CVSS: 9.8Exploit: None knownExposed: 0

A fix is available — apply it.

The parse_string function in cjson.c in the cJSON library mishandles UTF8/16 strings, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) or execute arbitrary code via a non-hex character in a JSON string, which triggers a heap-based buffer overflow.

CVSS v3
9.8
EG Score
9.8(medium)
EG Risk
51(Track)
EG Risk 51/100SSVC: Track

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity98% × 45%
Exploitation7% × 40%
Automatability30% × 15%
Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence.
EPSS PROB
7%
EPSS %ILE
93%
KEV
Not listed

Published

September 26, 2016

Last Modified

June 17, 2026

Advisory Details (5)

Auto-updated Jul 27, 2026
🔬 Proof of concept available. Patch available. Sources: github_commit.
generic
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/esnet/security/master/cve-2016-4303/esnet-secadv-2016-0001.txt.asc
generic Patch Available

[SECURITY] [DLA 2080-1] iperf3 security update

https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/01/msg00023.html
github_commit

commit 91f2fa59e8ed (esnet/iperf)

Fix landed in esnet/iperf commit 91f2fa59e8ed — awaiting tagged release

https://github.com/esnet/iperf/commit/91f2fa59e8ed80dfbf400add0164ee0e508e412a
generic🟡 PoC Available

TALOS-2016-0164 || Cisco Talos Intelligence Group - Comprehensive Threat Intelligence

http://www.talosintelligence.com/reports/TALOS-2016-0164/
generic

iperf3 Project News — iperf3 3.21 documentation

http://software.es.net/iperf/news.html#security-issue-iperf-3-1-3-iperf-3-0-12-released

Patch Availability(1)

Vendor / EcosystemFixed in / PatchReleasedSource
ubuntulibiperf-dev (3.0.11-1ubuntu0.1~esm1) @ xenial2026-05-20ubuntu

Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

All Vendor Advisories

(1)

Every vendor that published an advisory referencing this CVE — pulled from our cve_vendor_advisories aggregation. Click any row for the vendor's original advisory page.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 10× in last 7d / 39× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

Showing the most recent 100 of 119 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-07-26 14:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-07-25 14:13 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-07-25 11:41 UTCOSV refresh
  4. 2026-07-23 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-07-23 01:23 UTCEG score recompute
  6. 2026-07-22 22:02 UTCEG score recompute
  7. 2026-07-22 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-07-21 15:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-07-21 15:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-07-20 17:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-07-19 14:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-07-19 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
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  14. 2026-07-18 10:00 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-07-18 10:00 UTCEPSS rescore
  16. 2026-07-16 16:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-07-16 16:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  18. 2026-07-15 16:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  19. 2026-07-15 16:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-07-15 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-07-15 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-07-13 22:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-07-12 05:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  24. 2026-07-12 05:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-07-11 08:23 UTCEPSS rescore
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-07-09 19:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-07-08 15:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-07-08 06:05 UTCOSV refresh
  4. 2026-07-07 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-07-06 02:20 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-07-06 02:20 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-07-05 02:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-07-04 06:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-07-01 15:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-06-30 23:19 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-06-29 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-06-28 04:53 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-06-27 03:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  16. 2026-06-27 03:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  18. 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  19. 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-06-23 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  24. 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  26. 2026-06-19 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  27. 2026-06-19 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  28. 2026-06-19 17:55 UTCOSV refresh
  29. 2026-06-18 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  30. 2026-06-17 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  31. 2026-06-17 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  32. 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  33. 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  34. 2026-06-15 17:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  35. 2026-06-14 23:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  36. 2026-06-13 22:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  37. 2026-06-13 22:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  38. 2026-06-12 23:09 UTCEPSS rescore
  39. 2026-06-12 23:09 UTCEPSS rescore
  40. 2026-06-11 13:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  41. 2026-06-10 22:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  42. 2026-06-10 13:18 UTCEPSS rescore
  43. 2026-06-08 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  44. 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  45. 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  46. 2026-06-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  47. 2026-06-05 22:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  48. 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  49. 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  50. 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  51. 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  52. 2026-06-02 20:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  53. 2026-06-01 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
  54. 2026-06-01 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
  55. 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  56. 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  57. 2026-05-31 00:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  58. 2026-05-30 23:23 UTCOSV refresh
  59. 2026-05-29 13:41 UTCEPSS rescore
  60. 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  61. 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  62. 2026-05-27 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
  63. 2026-05-27 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
  64. 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  65. 2026-05-26 07:16 UTCEPSS rescore
  66. 2026-05-24 16:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  67. 2026-05-21 22:40 UTCEPSS rescore
  68. 2026-05-20 22:37 UTCEPSS rescore
  69. 2026-05-20 22:37 UTCEPSS rescore
  70. 2026-05-20 22:37 UTCEPSS rescore
  71. 2026-05-20 11:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  72. 2026-05-20 11:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  73. 2026-05-20 11:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  74. 2026-05-20 09:21 UTCVendor advisory
  75. 2026-05-20 09:21 UTCGHSA enrichment

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Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2016-4303?
CVE-2016-4303 is a critical vulnerability published on September 26, 2016. The parse_string function in cjson.c in the cJSON library mishandles UTF8/16 strings, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) or execute arbitrary code via a non-hex character in a JSON string, which triggers a heap-based buffer overflow.
When was CVE-2016-4303 disclosed?
CVE-2016-4303 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on September 26, 2016, with the most recent update on June 17, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2016-4303 actively exploited?
CVE-2016-4303 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 7% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, which ranks it in the top 6.6% of all scored CVEs.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2016-4303?
CVE-2016-4303 has a CVSS v3 base score of 9.8 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2016-4303?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2016-4303, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

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