CVE-2016-3427 — cassandra
CRITICALCVE-2016-3427 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) CWE-284 vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-05-12) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. A fix is available — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-05-12. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-06-02.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2016-3427.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2016-3427 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,415 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Unspecified vulnerability in Oracle Java SE 6u113, 7u99, and 8u77; Java SE Embedded 8u77; and JRockit R28.3.9 allows remote attackers to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability via vectors related to JMX.
Affected Products
cassandraapacheubuntu linuxcanonicaldebian linuxdebiane-series santricity management plug-insnetappe-series santricity storage managernetappe-series santricity web servicesnetappResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Fix
Upgrade the affected component to the fixed release for CVE-2016-3427, or apply your distribution's backported patch — distro builds are often patched at an older version number, so check your vendor's advisory rather than the upstream version alone.
Workarounds
Put an independent control in front of the weakness: restrict the affected endpoint or interface to trusted networks, require an additional authentication factor or proxy-level check, and invalidate existing sessions and credentials in case the flaw has already been used.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Oracle Java for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 | java-1.7.0-oracle-1:1.7.0.101-1jpp.1.el5_11 | RHSA-2016:0678 |
| Oracle Java for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 | java-1.6.0-sun-1:1.6.0.115-1jpp.1.el5_11 | RHSA-2016:0679 |
| Oracle Java for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | java-1.8.0-oracle-1:1.8.0.91-1jpp.1.el6_7 | RHSA-2016:0677 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 | java-1.7.0-openjdk-1:1.7.0.101-2.6.6.1.el5_11 | RHSA-2016:0676 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 | java-1.6.0-openjdk-1:1.6.0.39-1.13.11.0.el5_11 | RHSA-2016:0723 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Supplementary | java-1.7.0-ibm-1:1.7.0.9.40-1jpp.1.el5 | RHSA-2016:0702 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Supplementary | java-1.6.0-ibm-1:1.6.0.16.25-1jpp.1.el5 | RHSA-2016:0708 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | java-1.8.0-openjdk-1:1.8.0.91-0.b14.el6_7 | RHSA-2016:0651 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2016-3427 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.