Your RSA-2048 keys break in 2030. Find every one of them before attackers do.
🐹
🐹 Go
Not in CISA KEV
HIGH severity

CVE-2016-3697 — runc

HIGHFix: opencontainers/runc@69af385

CVE-2016-3697 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) CWE-264 vulnerability in github.com/opencontainers/runc. A fix is available for github.com/opencontainers/runc — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Privilege Elevation in runc

Also known asGHSA-q3j5-32m5-58c2GO-2021-0070
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Oct 10, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
0.4%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs31th percentile — riskier than 31% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.30%0.59%0.89%0.1%0.4%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2016-3697 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 385,987 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected
🐹github.com/opencontainers/runc

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

libcontainer/user/user.go in runC before 0.1.0, as used in Docker before 1.11.2, improperly treats a numeric UID as a potential username, which allows local users to gain privileges via a numeric username in the password file in a container.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐹Gogithub.com/opencontainers/runcall versions0.1.0go get github.com/opencontainers/runc@v0.1.0

Affected Products

3 products · 3 configurations
Application
dockerdocker
≤ 1.11.1
range
Application
runclinuxfoundation
≤ 0.0.9
range
OS
opensuseopensuse
1 version
13.2

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/opencontainers/runc, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update github.com/opencontainers/runc to 0.1.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2016-3697 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. 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.

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.

Red HatModerate
ProductFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extrasdocker-0:1.9.1-40.el7RHSA-2016:1034
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extrasdocker-0:1.10.3-57.el7RHSA-2016:2634

Frequently Asked Questions

libcontainer/user/user.go in runC before 0.1.0, as used in Docker before 1.11.2, improperly treats a numeric UID as a potential username, which allows local users to gain privileges via a numeric username in the password file in a container.
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2016-3697 in your dependencies?

Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works
CVE-2016-3697: runc — Fixed in 0.1.0