CVE-2016-6526
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 · uneditedThe SpamCall Activity component in Telecom application on Samsung Note device L(5.0/5.1) and M(6.0) allows attackers to cause a denial of service (crash and reboot) or possibly gain privileges via a malformed serializable object.
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 confidenceThe SpamCall Activity component in Samsung's Telecom application on Android L(5.0/5.1) and M(6.0) fails to properly validate deserialized serializable objects. By passing a malformed serializable object to this component, an attacker can trigger a denial of service (device crash and reboot) or potentially achieve privilege escalation since the Telecom application runs with elevated system 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 data= 5.0= 5.1= 6.0CVSS 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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Confirm device manufacturer is SamsungCheck the device settings or use 'getprop ro.manufacturer' or 'getprop ro.product.brand' command to verify the device is manufactured by SamsungAffected if The device is not a Samsung device - this vulnerability only affects Samsung devices
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Identify Android OS versionCheck the Android version in Settings > About Phone > Android version, or use 'getprop ro.build.version.release' commandAffected if The Android version is NOT 5.0, 5.1, or 6.0 - this vulnerability only affects these specific versions of Android on Samsung devices
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Locate the Telecom applicationCheck for the presence of the Samsung Telecom app in the application list or check package name 'com.android.server.telecom' via package managerAffected if The Telecom application is not installed - the vulnerable component does not exist on the device
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Verify SpamCall Activity component existsUse a package inspector or 'dumpsys package com.android.server.telecom' to list activities and verify the SpamCall Activity is presentAffected if The SpamCall Activity component is not present - the specific vulnerable component is not enabled or does not exist
The device is affected if it is a Samsung device running Android 5.0, 5.1, or 6.0 that has the Telecom application with the SpamCall Activity component present and enabled.
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 dataUsers should apply Samsung firmware updates as they become available. Organizations can implement mobile device management (MDM) policies to restrict app installation to trusted sources only, reducing the attack surface for malicious apps that could exploit this vulnerability.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2016-6526 — 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-2016-6526 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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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.
- 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