CVE-2016-2050 Libdwarf Project CVE debrief

Who should care

Security teams, developers, and operators using libdwarf to parse ELF files should pay attention, especially if the library processes untrusted or externally supplied files. Distribution maintainers and embedded vendors that ship libdwarf are also affected if they have not incorporated a fix.

Technical summary

NVD classifies the weakness as CWE-787 (out-of-bounds write) with CVSS 3.1 vector AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H. The vulnerable component is get_abbrev_array_info in libdwarf-20151114. The attack surface is file parsing: a crafted ELF file can trigger memory corruption that results in availability impact.

Defensive priority

Medium. The issue is exploitable via a crafted file and can cause high availability impact, but the published vector indicates user interaction is required to open or process the malicious input. Prioritize remediation for any environment that ingests untrusted ELF files.

Recommended defensive actions

• Apply a vendor or upstream update that addresses CVE-2016-2050 in libdwarf.
• If you cannot patch immediately, avoid parsing untrusted ELF files with affected libdwarf builds.
• Treat ELF files from external sources as untrusted input and isolate any processing pipeline that uses libdwarf.
• Validate whether your distribution or embedded firmware includes libdwarf-20151114 or a similarly affected build.
• Add regression tests for malformed ELF inputs in any component that embeds or depends on libdwarf.

Evidence notes

The CVE record was published on 2017-01-31 and NVD later marked the record modified on 2026-05-13. The supplied references point to oss-security mailing list posts from 2016-01-19 and 2016-01-25, which provide historical advisory context. NVD identifies the affected version as libdwarf_project:libdwarf:2015-11-14 and the weakness as CWE-787. No exploit code or weaponized reproduction details are included here.

Official resources