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AndroidOperating system · Google

CVE-2016-5857

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.0 Published 2017-03-20
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
81/100
Remediation priority · High
No privileges

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
The Qualcomm SPCom driver in Android before 7.0 allows local users to execute arbitrary code within the context of the kernel via a crafted application, aka Android internal bug 34386529 and Qualcomm internal bug CR#1094140.

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 confidence

Local privilege escalation vulnerability in the Qualcomm SPCom (Serial Peripheral Communication) driver for Android versions before 7.0. The driver fails to properly validate input from user-space applications, allowing a locally-installed malicious application to execute arbitrary code within kernel context by passing crafted data to the driver.

MitigationUpdate Android devices to version 7.0 or later to obtain the patched driver; for unpatchable devices, consider disabling the SPCom driver if functionality is not required, or apply vendor-specific out-of-band patches if available.

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
AndroidOperating system
Affected:= 7.0

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
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/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. Check Android version
    Run 'getprop ro.build.version.release' in a terminal or check Settings > About Phone > Android version
    Affected if Version is below 7.0 (e.g., 6.x, 5.x, etc.)
  2. Identify SPCom device node
    Run 'ls -la /dev/ | grep spcom' or check for /dev/spcom* entries in the device filesystem
    Affected if SPCom device node exists and Android version is below 7.0
  3. Verify SPCom driver module
    Check /proc/modules or run 'lsmod | grep spcom' to see if the SPCom kernel module is loaded
    Affected if SPCom driver is loaded and Android version is below 7.0
  4. Confirm kernel configuration
    Check /proc/config.gz (if available) for CONFIG_SPCom or examine the running kernel for SPCom driver support via 'grep -i spcom /proc/kallsyms'
    Affected if SPCom driver support is compiled into the kernel and Android version is below 7.0

The device is affected if it runs Android version lower than 7.0 and has the SPCom driver (Qualcomm Serial Peripheral Communication) present and enabled in the kernel.

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
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Update Android devices to version 7.0 or later to obtain the patched driver; for unpatchable devices, consider disabling the SPCom driver if functionality is not required, or apply vendor-specific out-of-band patches if available.

Fix this in Android Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation6.0 h
  • Implementation12.0 h
  • Testing8.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
30.0 hours of engineering $5,280
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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-2016-5857 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