CVE-2016-4542

CRITICALNVD 9.89.8—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

Score 9.8 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: CRITICAL) published 2022-05-14. NVD baseline CVSS 9.8; sources differ by 0.0.

Triggered by: GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
Sources: epss, ghsa, nvd
9.8
EchelonGraph verdictPlan a fixSerious severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet.
  • High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS: 6%CVSS: 9.8Exploit: NoneExposed: 0

A fix is available — apply it.

The exif_process_IFD_TAG function in ext/exif/exif.c in PHP before 5.5.35, 5.6.x before 5.6.21, and 7.x before 7.0.6 does not properly construct spprintf arguments, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds read) or possibly have unspecified other impact via crafted header data.

CVSS v3
9.8
EG Score
9.8(medium)
EG Risk
51(Track)
EG Risk 51/100SSVC: Track

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity98% × 45%
Exploitation6% × 40%
Automatability30% × 15%
Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence.
EPSS
92.6%
KEV
Not listed

Published

May 22, 2016

Last Modified

May 6, 2026

Advisory Details (7)

Auto-updated May 8, 2026
No patch confirmed yet.
generic

PHP :: Sec Bug #72094 :: Out of bounds heap read access in exif header processing

https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=72094
generic
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/89844
generic

oss-security - CVE Request: PHP: several issues fixed with 7.0.6, 5.6.21 and 5.5.35

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/05/05/21
generic

[SECURITY] [DSA 3602-1] php5 security update

http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3602
generic
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-2750.html
generic

PHP: PHP 7 ChangeLog

http://php.net/ChangeLog-7.php
generic

PHP: PHP 5 ChangeLog

http://php.net/ChangeLog-5.php

Vendor Advisories for CVE-2016-4542(1)

These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.

Patch Availability(2)

Vendor / EcosystemFixed in / PatchReleasedSource
ubuntuphp7.0-zip (7.0.4-7ubuntu2.1) @ xenial2026-05-20ubuntu
redhatrh-php56-php-pear-1:1.9.5-4.el72016-11-15redhat

Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.

Additional Vendor Advisories

(1)

Vendors that published advisories for this CVE beyond the curated set above. Broader coverage but minimal per-row detail — click through for the original advisory.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 13× in last 7d / 43× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

Showing the most recent 100 of 121 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-07-23 01:23 UTCEG score recompute
  2. 2026-07-22 22:02 UTCEG score recompute
  3. 2026-07-22 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-07-21 15:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-07-21 15:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-07-20 17:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-07-19 14:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-07-19 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-07-19 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-07-18 10:00 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-07-18 10:00 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-07-16 16:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-07-16 16:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-07-15 16:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-07-15 16:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  16. 2026-07-15 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-07-15 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  18. 2026-07-13 22:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  19. 2026-07-13 06:09 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-07-12 05:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-07-12 05:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-07-11 08:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-07-09 19:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  24. 2026-07-08 15:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-07-08 12:45 UTCOSV refresh
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-07-07 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-07-06 02:20 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-07-06 02:20 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-07-05 02:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-07-04 06:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-07-01 15:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-06-30 23:19 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-06-29 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-06-28 04:53 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-06-27 03:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-06-27 03:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  16. 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  18. 2026-06-23 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
  19. 2026-06-22 14:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  24. 2026-06-20 00:19 UTCOSV refresh
  25. 2026-06-19 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  26. 2026-06-19 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  27. 2026-06-18 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  28. 2026-06-17 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  29. 2026-06-17 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  30. 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  31. 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  32. 2026-06-15 17:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  33. 2026-06-14 23:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  34. 2026-06-13 22:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  35. 2026-06-13 22:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  36. 2026-06-12 23:09 UTCEPSS rescore
  37. 2026-06-12 23:09 UTCEPSS rescore
  38. 2026-06-11 13:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  39. 2026-06-10 22:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  40. 2026-06-10 13:18 UTCEPSS rescore
  41. 2026-06-08 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  42. 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  43. 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  44. 2026-06-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  45. 2026-06-05 22:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  46. 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  47. 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  48. 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  49. 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  50. 2026-06-02 20:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  51. 2026-06-01 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
  52. 2026-06-01 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
  53. 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  54. 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  55. 2026-05-31 02:55 UTCOSV refresh
  56. 2026-05-31 00:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  57. 2026-05-29 13:41 UTCEPSS rescore
  58. 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  59. 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  60. 2026-05-27 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
  61. 2026-05-27 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
  62. 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  63. 2026-05-26 07:16 UTCEPSS rescore
  64. 2026-05-24 16:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  65. 2026-05-22 21:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  66. 2026-05-22 21:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  67. 2026-05-21 22:40 UTCEPSS rescore
  68. 2026-05-20 22:37 UTCEPSS rescore
  69. 2026-05-20 22:37 UTCEPSS rescore
  70. 2026-05-20 22:37 UTCEPSS rescore
  71. 2026-05-20 11:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  72. 2026-05-20 11:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  73. 2026-05-20 11:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  74. 2026-05-20 10:47 UTCVendor advisory
  75. 2026-05-20 10:47 UTCGHSA enrichment

Related CVEs(same vendor)

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2016-4542?
CVE-2016-4542 is a critical vulnerability published on May 22, 2016. The exifprocessIFD_TAG function in ext/exif/exif.c in PHP before 5.5.35, 5.6.x before 5.6.21, and 7.x before 7.0.6 does not properly construct spprintf arguments, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds read) or possibly have unspecified other impact via crafted…
When was CVE-2016-4542 disclosed?
CVE-2016-4542 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on May 22, 2016, with the most recent update on May 6, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2016-4542 actively exploited?
CVE-2016-4542 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 92.6% percentile likelihood of exploitation in the next 30 days — higher percentiles indicate greater predicted risk.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2016-4542?
CVE-2016-4542 has a CVSS v3 base score of 9.8 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2016-4542?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2016-4542, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

Dependency Blast Radius

Explore the affected products and dependency analysis for CVE-2016-4542

Explore →

Is Your Infrastructure Affected by CVE-2016-4542?

EchelonGraph automatically scans your cloud infrastructure and maps CVE exposure using blast radius analysis.

Start Free Scan →Browse All CVEs