CVE-2016-10579 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.1) CWE-311 vulnerability in chromedriver. A fix is available for chromedriver — see the affected versions and patch details below.
chromedriver Downloads Resources over HTTP
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2016-10579 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,567 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
chromedriverReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects npm packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Chromedriver is an NPM wrapper for selenium ChromeDriver. Chromedriver before 2.26.1 downloads binary resources over HTTP, which leaves it vulnerable to MITM attacks. It may be possible to cause remote code execution (RCE) by swapping out the requested binary with an attacker controlled binary if the attacker is on the network or positioned in between the user and the remote server.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | chromedriver | all versions | 2.25.2npm install chromedriver@2.25.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for chromedriver, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update chromedriver to 2.25.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2016-10579 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2016-10579 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2016-10579. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2016-10579 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2016-10579 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.