CVE-2016-5030 Libdwarf Project CVE debrief

Who should care

Teams that ship or embed libdwarf, especially tools, parsers, services, or pipelines that open untrusted DWARF-containing files. Package maintainers and defenders monitoring file-ingestion paths should also pay attention.

Technical summary

According to NVD, libdwarf versions before 2016-09-23 are vulnerable to a NULL pointer dereference in _dwarf_calculate_info_section_end_ptr when handling a crafted file. NVD classifies the issue as CWE-476 and assigns CVSS 3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, reflecting a crash-oriented impact with availability loss. The exposed path is file parsing, so user or service interaction with attacker-supplied content is the key risk condition.

Defensive priority

Medium. The issue is limited to denial of service, but it can still matter in applications or services that ingest untrusted files and where a crash has operational impact.

Recommended defensive actions

• Upgrade libdwarf to 20160923 or later, or apply the vendor/distribution fix if you rely on a packaged build.
• Inventory systems and applications that parse DWARF data with libdwarf, including offline tools and server-side upload processing.
• Treat all externally supplied files as untrusted and isolate parsing in crash-tolerant or sandboxed components where possible.
• Add crash monitoring and regression tests for malformed-file handling in any workflow that uses libdwarf.
• Verify downstream packages and containers are rebuilt with the patched library version.

Evidence notes

NVD describes the flaw as a NULL pointer dereference in _dwarf_calculate_info_section_end_ptr caused by a crafted file, and lists libdwarf versions before 2016-09-23 as vulnerable. The linked oss-security references include a patch notice dated 2016-05-24, an exploit-related mailing list item dated 2016-05-25, and a third-party advisory page. The NVD record was later modified on 2026-05-13, which does not change the original disclosure timeline.

Official resources