CVE-2016-4472: Canonical Ubuntu Linux

High severity, CVSS 8.1. EPSS: 11.9% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

The overflow protection in Expat is removed by compilers with certain optimization settings, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code via crafted XML data. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2015-1283 and CVE-2015-2716.

Affected products

• Canonical Ubuntu Linux: version 12.04 only
• Libexpat Project Libexpat: up to and including 2.1.1
• McAfee Policy Auditor: before 6.5.1 (fixed in 6.5.1)
• Python Python: from 2.7.0, before 2.7.15 (fixed in 2.7.15); from 3.3.0, before 3.3.7 (fixed in 3.3.7); from 3.4.0, before 3.4.7 (fixed in 3.4.7); from 3.5.0, before 3.5.4 (fixed in 3.5.4); from 3.6.0, before 3.6.2 (fixed in 3.6.2)

Published 2016-06-30. Last modified 2026-10-08.