dbcve.org
Mac Os XOperating system · Apple

CVE-2016-4701

MEDIUM · 6.2 CVSS v3.0 Published 2016-09-25
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 10.11.6 or later.
See remediation →
67/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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
Application Firewall in Apple OS X before 10.12 allows local users to cause a denial of service via vectors involving a crafted SO_EXECPATH environment variable.

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

A denial of service vulnerability exists in the Application Firewall component of Apple OS X versions prior to 10.12. Local users can trigger the vulnerability by setting a crafted SO_EXECPATH environment variable, causing the firewall to become unresponsive or crash.

MitigationUpgrade to macOS Sierra (10.12) or later to receive the security update that addresses this vulnerability.

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
Mac Os XOperating system
Affected:<= 10.11.6

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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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. Check installed OS X version
    Run 'sw_vers -productVersion' in Terminal to get the exact version number
    Affected if Version is 10.11.6 or lower (any version prior to 10.12)
  2. Verify Application Firewall is enabled
    Run 'sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --getglobalstate' to check firewall status
    Affected if Firewall is enabled (the vulnerability affects the firewall when active)
  3. Confirm firewall is accessible via CLI
    Verify the socketfilterfw binary exists at /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/ - run 'ls -la /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw'
    Affected if The Application Firewall component is installed and present on the system

Your system is affected if it runs OS X 10.11.6 or earlier AND has the Application Firewall enabled, making it vulnerable to denial of service via crafted SO_EXECPATH environment variable.

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.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 10.11.6
Interim mitigation

Upgrade to macOS Sierra (10.12) or later to receive the security update that addresses this vulnerability.

Fix this in Mac Os X Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation1.0 h
  • Implementation1.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
5.0 hours of engineering $860
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,376.

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-2016-4701 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