How severe is CVE-2016-5388?

CVE-2016-5388 has a CVSS score of 8.1/10, rated HIGH. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2016-5388?

CVE-2016-5388 affects the following packages: org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina (Maven), org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina (Maven). Ecosystems affected: Maven.

How do I fix CVE-2016-5388?

Update org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina to 7.0.72 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2016-5388 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2016-5388 in my Maven dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate CVE-2016-5388 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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 does O3 Security protect against CVE-2016-5388?

O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2016-5388 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.

Is CVE-2016-5388 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2016-5388 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2016-5388?

CVE-2016-5388 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 50.9%, placing it in the 99th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A score above 50% indicates significantly elevated exploitation risk — immediate patching is strongly recommended.

When was CVE-2016-5388 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2016-5388 was published on July 19, 2016 and was last updated on July 8, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

☕

☕ Maven

Not in CISA KEV

HIGH severity

CVE-2016-5388 — tomcat-catalina

HIGHFix: apache/tomcat@1b91e91

CVE-2016-5388 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.1) vulnerability in org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina. EPSS puts its 30-day exploitation probability at 50.9% (99th percentile). A fix is available for org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Improper Access Control in Apache Tomcat

Also known asGHSA-v646-rx6w-r3qq

Published

Jul 19, 2016

Updated

Jul 8, 2026

Affected

2 pkgs

Patched

2 / 2

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Sep 24, 2026 · OSV.dev, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

50.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

High Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs99th percentile — riskier than 99% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

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-2016-5388 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE sits: patch-first territory.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 378,156 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.

Real-World Exposure

2 pkgs affected

☕org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina☕org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina

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

Description

Apache Tomcat 7.x through 7.0.70 and 8.x through 8.5.4, when the CGI Servlet is enabled, follows RFC 3875 section 4.1.18 and therefore does not protect applications from the presence of untrusted client data in the HTTP_PROXY environment variable, which might allow remote attackers to redirect an application's outbound HTTP traffic to an arbitrary proxy server via a crafted Proxy header in an HTTP request, aka an "httpoxy" issue. NOTE: the vendor states "A mitigation is planned for future releases of Tomcat, tracked as CVE-2016-5388"; in other words, this is not a CVE ID for a vulnerability.

Affected Packages

2 total 2 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
☕Maven	`org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina`	≥ 7.0.0&&< 7.0.72	7.0.72`org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina:7.0.72`
☕Maven	`org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina`	≥ 8.0.0&&< 8.5.5	8.5.5`org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina:8.5.5`

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina to 7.0.72 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2016-5388 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-2016-5388 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.

Tailored to CVE-2016-5388. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

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

Product	Fixed in	Advisory
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6	`tomcat6-0:6.0.24-98.el6_8`	RHSA-2016:2045
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7	`tomcat-0:7.0.54-8.el7_2`	RHSA-2016:2046
Red Hat JBoss Web Server 3.0	see advisory	RHSA-2016:1624
Red Hat JBoss Web Server 3 for RHEL 6	`httpd24-0:2.4.6-62.ep7.el6`	RHSA-2016:1636
Red Hat JBoss Web Server 3 for RHEL 7	`httpd24-0:2.4.6-62.ep7.el7`	RHSA-2016:1635

UbuntuHIGH

USN-3177-1Ubuntu USN-4791-1Ubuntu

Frequently Asked Questions

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2016-5388 in your dependencies?

O3 Security finds CVE-2016-5388 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works