CVE-2016-11038
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedAn issue was discovered on Samsung mobile devices with software through 2016-04-05 (incorporating the Samsung Professional Audio SDK). The Jack audio service doesn't implement access control for shared memory, leading to arbitrary code execution or privilege escalation. The Samsung ID is SVE-2016-5953 (July 2016).
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceThe Jack audio service on Samsung mobile devices lacks access control for shared memory, allowing unprivileged applications to read or write to shared memory regions used by the audio service. This can be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution or privilege escalation to root-level privileges.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE dataall versionsCVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Android versionGo to Settings > About Phone > Android version or run 'getprop ro.build.version.release' via ADBAffected if Version is below 7.0 (Nougat) or was released before July 2016, as patches were included in Android 7.0 and later releases
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Check for Samsung vendor patch SVE-2016-5953Run 'getprop ro.build.version.security_patch' via ADB or check Samsung's security update documentation for your specific modelAffected if The security patch level is earlier than July 2016 or the patch SVE-2016-5953 is not listed in the applied updates
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Verify Professional Audio SDK versionCheck /system/lib/libjackserver.so or /vendor/lib/libjackserver.so and compare the file version, or inspect logs for 'Jack server' service initializationAffected if The Professional Audio SDK version is older than the July 2016 patch level or the shared memory access control (DAC/MAC) is not enforced on /data/jack/ or /dev/jack* entries
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Inspect shared memory permissionsRun 'ls -la /dev/jack*' and 'ls -la /data/jack/ 2>/dev/null' via ADB shell to check if Jack audio service shared memory regions have restrictive ownership and permissionsAffected if Shared memory devices or directories are world-readable/writable or owned by system instead of audio group with 660 permissions
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Confirm Jack audio service is enabledCheck running processes with 'ps -A | grep jack' or inspect /system/etc/audio_policy.conf for JACK audio policy configurationAffected if Jack audio service (jackserver) is running and the vulnerable shared memory interface is exposed to unprivileged applications
A device is likely affected if it runs an Android version before the July 2016 security update, lacks Samsung patch SVE-2016-5953, and has the Jack audio service enabled with unprotected shared memory regions accessible to unprivileged applications.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataApply Samsung's vendor patch (SVE-2016-5953) or upgrade to an Android version released after July 2016 that includes the patched Professional Audio SDK.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation16.0 h
- Testing8.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2016-11038 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2016-11038 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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