Reference page — cumulative record through Monday, October 19, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.
CVE-2018-16301
The command-line argument parser in tcpdump before 4.99.0 has a buffer overflow in tcpdump.c:read_infile().
AV AC PR UI S C I A CVSS EPSS %ile KEV
L L N R U H H H 7.8 .0063 48.9 —
AFFECTED
Product Versions Fixed
tcpdump unspecified – —
TIMELINE
Aug 31 Reserved by Tcpdump
Oct 3 Published (CNA: Tcpdump)
Oct 8 ENRICHED — CVE-2018-16301 (The Tcpdump Group tcpdump). Received CVSS 7.8 and CPE data from NVD.
Description
The command-line argument parser in tcpdump before 4.99.0 has a buffer overflow in tcpdump.c:read_infile(). To trigger this vulnerability the attacker needs to create a 4GB file on the local filesystem and to specify the file name as the value of the -F command-line argument of tcpdump.
Lifecycle
Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
| Date | Event | Detail |
|---|
| August 31, 2018 | Reserved | Reserved by Tcpdump |
| October 3, 2019 | Published | Published (CNA: Tcpdump) |
| October 8, 2026 | ENRICHED | ENRICHED — CVE-2018-16301 (The Tcpdump Group tcpdump). Received CVSS 7.8 and CPE data from NVD. |
Affected
Affected products and packages — 1 row
| Vendor | Product / Package | Ecosystem | Version introduced | Fixed |
|---|
| The Tcpdump Group | tcpdump | — | unspecified | — |
About this page
This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2018-16301 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Monday, October 19, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.
