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Actively exploited in the wild. This CVE is on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list — treat remediation as urgent. Federal remediation due by 24 Mar 2022.
Enterprise Linux DesktopOperating system · Redhat

CVE-2016-4117

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2016-05-11
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 21.0.0.226 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
In the wild High EPSS Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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 · unedited
Adobe Flash Player 21.0.0.226 and earlier allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via unspecified vectors, as exploited in the wild in May 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 · moderate confidence

Critical arbitrary code execution vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player 21.0.0.226 and earlier that was actively exploited in the wild. The unspecified vector allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code with minimal user interaction, achieving complete system compromise.

MitigationUpdate Adobe Flash Player to the patched version (21.0.0.241 or later), or preferably remove Flash Player entirely given its end-of-life status and ongoing security risks.

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 data
Enterprise Linux DesktopOperating system
Affected:= 5.0= 6.0
Enterprise Linux ServerOperating system
Affected:= 5.0= 6.0
Enterprise Linux Server From RhuiOperating system
Affected:= 5.0= 6.0
Enterprise Linux WorkstationOperating system
Affected:= 5.0= 6.0
Flash PlayerApplication
Affected:<= 21.0.0.226
EvergreenOperating system
Affected:= 11.4
OpensuseOperating system
Affected:= 13.1= 13.2
Linux Enterprise DesktopOperating system
Affected:= 12

CVSS 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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify if Adobe Flash Player is installed
    Check common installation locations: Windows: C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash\ (or via Registry at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Macromedia\FlashPlayer), Linux: /usr/lib/flash-plugin/ or /usr/share/flash-plugin/, or use system package manager (rpm -qa | grep -i flash, dpkg -l | grep -i flash)
    Affected if Adobe Flash Player is present on the system
  2. Determine the installed Flash Player version
    Windows: Run the installed Flash Player (flashplayerplugin*.exe) with -version flag, or check Registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Macromedia\FlashPlayer\CurrentVersion. Linux: Run /usr/bin/flash-player-properties or check version via package manager (rpm -qi flash-plugin)
    Affected if Version is 21.0.0.226 or earlier (compare numeric version)
  3. Verify Flash Player plugin is enabled in browsers
    Check browser add-ons/plugins: Chrome: chrome://plugins, Firefox: about:addons, IE: Manage Add-ons. Look for 'Shockwave Flash' entry
    Affected if Flash Player browser plugin is enabled in any web browser
  4. Check for Flash Player on RHEL/SUSE Linux systems
    On Red Hat systems: rpm -qa | grep -i flash. On SUSE/OpenSUSE: rpm -qa | grep -i flash or zypper search flash. Also check /etc/flashplayer/ locations
    Affected if Flash Player package is installed via system package manager on listed vulnerable RHEL/SUSE versions

A system is affected if Adobe Flash Player version 21.0.0.226 or earlier is installed and enabled, particularly on the listed Red Hat, SUSE, or OpenSUSE distributions, or any Windows/macOS system with vulnerable Flash.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 21.0.0.226
Interim mitigation

Update Adobe Flash Player to the patched version (21.0.0.241 or later), or preferably remove Flash Player entirely given its end-of-life status and ongoing security risks.

Recommended fix High confidence

N/A - Flash Player is End-of-Life (EOL since December 2020). If absolutely necessary, Adobe released a patch to version 21.0.0.242 in May 2016, but removal is the recommended security practice.

  1. Remove Adobe Flash Player entirely from all affected systems. Flash Player reached end-of-life on December 31, 2020 and should no longer be used.
  2. On RHEL/CentOS systems: yum remove flash-plugin or rpm -e flash-plugin
  3. On openSUSE systems: zypper remove flash-player or rpm -e flash-player
  4. On SLES: use YaST or rpm to remove flash-player
  5. Remove any associated browser plugins: Remove libflashplayer.so from browser plugin directories (typically ~/.mozilla/plugins/ or /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/)
  6. Verify removal: Confirm no Flash Player binaries remain and browsers no longer detect the plugin
  7. If Flash functionality is required, migrate to HTML5-based alternatives instead
Caveat Flash Player is deprecated and removed from all modern browsers. Any Flash-based content or applications will no longer function.

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Enterprise Linux Desktop Exploited in the wild — priority engagement
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
9.0 hours of engineering $1,600
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Scan for this in your stack

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2016-4117 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data