PatchSiren

PatchSiren cyber security CVE debrief

CVE-2016-6485 Magento CVE debrief

CVE-2016-6485 is a cryptographic weakness in Magento 2’s encryption component where the initialization vector is generated with PHP rand instead of a cryptographically secure source. That can weaken confidentiality protections and make the IV easier to guess, reducing the effectiveness of encrypted data protection.

Vendor
Magento
Product
CVE-2016-6485
CVSS
HIGH 7.5
CISA KEV
Not listed in stored evidence
Original CVE published
2017-03-01
Original CVE updated
2026-05-13
Advisory published
2017-03-01
Advisory updated
2026-05-13

Who should care

Magento 2 operators, application security teams, and developers responsible for encryption, session handling, or protection of sensitive customer and merchant data should prioritize this issue.

Technical summary

NVD classifies the issue as CWE-327 and maps it to Magento 2 with CVSS 3.0 AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N. The NVD reference set points to two oss-security mailing list advisories and a Magento GitHub pull request, indicating the issue was publicly discussed and remediated in the project’s codebase. The core problem is non-cryptographic randomness in IV construction, which can undermine cryptographic protection mechanisms.

Defensive priority

High. This is a network-reachable, unauthenticated weakness with high confidentiality impact, so it should be prioritized for any internet-facing Magento 2 deployment or any system protecting sensitive data with the affected encryption path.

Recommended defensive actions

  • Review the Magento remediation referenced by the linked GitHub pull request and apply the vendor’s fix or a version that includes it.
  • Verify whether your deployed Magento 2 build uses the affected encryption code path in Framework/Encryption/Crypt.php.
  • Replace any cryptographic use of PHP rand with a cryptographically secure random source in custom code or extensions.
  • If sensitive data may have been protected with the affected logic, reassess exposure and rotate or re-encrypt data as appropriate.
  • Audit for related weaknesses in custom or third-party Magento extensions that handle IV generation or encryption parameters.

Evidence notes

Supplied source data shows CVE-2016-6485 was published by CVE/NVD on 2017-03-01 and last modified on 2026-05-13. NVD references include two oss-security mailing list posts dated 2016-07-19 and 2016-07-27, plus https://github.com/magento/magento2/pull/15017. The NVD CPE criteria mark Magento 2 as vulnerable and the listed CVSS vector is CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.

Official resources

Publicly disclosed via CVE/NVD in 2017, with supporting discussion and project reference material dated July 2016 in the supplied source corpus.