CVE-2016-2217 Dest Unreach CVE debrief

Who should care

Organizations running Socat with OpenSSL-enabled address features, especially on the affected versions listed in the NVD record. This is most relevant for systems that rely on Socat to protect network traffic with Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

Technical summary

The issue is a Diffie-Hellman parameter weakness in Socat’s OpenSSL address implementation. NVD maps it to CWE-320 and lists the impact as network-reachable, no privileges required, no user interaction, with limited confidentiality impact (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N). The vulnerable CPEs in the NVD record are Socat 1.7.3.0 and 2.0.0-b8.

Defensive priority

Medium. Prioritize this if Socat is exposed in production or used for encrypted connections, because the weakness affects key exchange confidentiality rather than availability or integrity.

Recommended defensive actions

• Inventory deployments running Socat and confirm whether versions 1.7.3.0 or 2.0.0-b8 are in use.
• Apply the vendor fix or upgrade to a Socat release covered by the vendor advisory and downstream security guidance.
• Review any services that depend on Socat for OpenSSL-based transport protection and verify that key exchange is configured securely.
• If remediation must be deferred, reduce exposure of affected services and monitor for unexpected use of the vulnerable encrypted pathways.

Evidence notes

This debrief is based on the supplied CVE record, the NVD detail and modified feed entry, the Dest Unreach vendor advisory reference, two oss-security mailing list references, and the Gentoo GLSA reference. The only security-impact details used here are those present in the supplied corpus: weak Diffie-Hellman parameter usage, affected Socat versions, CWE-320, and the NVD CVSS vector and score.

Official resources