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Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2018-16657

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.0 Published 2018-09-07
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 5.0.7 / 5.1.4 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

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
In Kamailio before 5.0.7 and 5.1.x before 5.1.4, a crafted SIP message with an invalid Via header causes a segmentation fault and crashes Kamailio. The reason is missing input validation in the crcitt_string_array core function for calculating a CRC hash for To tags. (An additional error is present in the check_via_address core function: this function also misses input validation.) This could result in denial of service and potentially the execution of arbitrary code.

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
How this class of weakness works · CWE-476

The code follows a pointer that is null, crashing the process. An attacker who can reliably trigger it turns the crash into a denial of service. The fix is checking for null before use and handling the failure path gracefully.

General guidance for the null pointer dereference class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

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
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 8.0= 9.0
KamailioApplication
Affected:< 5.0.7>= 5.1.0, < 5.1.4

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:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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 5.0.7 / 5.1.4 or later
Fixed in 5.0.75.1.4
Vendor patch skalatan.de →
Recommended fix High confidence

Kamailio 5.0.7 (for 5.0.x branch) or Kamailio 5.1.4 (for 5.1.x branch), or the latest available version in your distribution's repository

  1. Check current Kamailio version using: kamailio -v or dpkg -l | grep kamailio
  2. For Debian 8.0 (Jessie): Update package lists with apt-get update
  3. For Debian 8.0 (Jessie): Upgrade Kamailio with apt-get install kamailio=5.0.7-* to get the fixed version
  4. For Debian 9.0 (Stretch): Update package lists with apt-get update
  5. For Debian 9.0 (Stretch): Upgrade Kamailio with apt-get install kamailio=5.1.4-* to get the fixed version
  6. Alternatively, upgrade to the latest available Kamailio version in your Debian repository
  7. Restart Kamailio service after upgrade using: systemctl restart kamailio or service kamailio restart
  8. Verify the fix by checking the new version matches 5.0.7 or 5.1.4 or later
Caveat Minor: Review configuration files for compatibility with the new version; major version jumps may require config syntax updates

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

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $3,550. Get the upgrade done

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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-2018-16657 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