CVE-2016-3169 — drupal/core
HIGHCVE-2016-3169 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.1) CWE-264 vulnerability in drupal/core. A fix is available for drupal/core — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Drupal saving user accounts can sometimes grant the user all roles
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-2016-3169 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 377,636 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
drupal/core🐘drupal/core🐘drupal/drupal🐘drupal/drupalReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
The User module in Drupal 6.x before 6.38 and 7.x before 7.43 allows remote attackers to gain privileges by leveraging contributed or custom code that calls the user_save function with an explicit category and loads all roles into the array.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | drupal/core | ≥ 6.0&&< 6.38 | 6.38composer require drupal/core:^6.38 |
| 🐘Packagist | drupal/core | ≥ 7.0&&< 7.43 | 7.43composer require drupal/core:^7.43 |
| 🐘Packagist | drupal/drupal | ≥ 7.0&&< 7.43 | 7.43composer require drupal/drupal:^7.43 |
| 🐘Packagist | drupal/drupal | ≥ 6.0&&< 6.38 | 6.38composer require drupal/drupal:^6.38 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for drupal/core, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update drupal/core to 6.38 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2016-3169 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-2016-3169 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2016-3169. 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-2016-3169 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2016-3169 across Packagist dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.