What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2016-4658

• Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.0)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 8.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2016-09-25 · updated 2026-10-14
• Weakness: CWE-119

Description

xpointer.c in libxml2 before 2.9.5 (as used in Apple iOS before 10, OS X before 10.12, tvOS before 10, and watchOS before 3, and other products) does not forbid namespace nodes in XPointer ranges, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (use-after-free and memory corruption) via a crafted XML document.

Affected products

• Apple Iphone Os: before 10.0 — fixed in 10.0
• macOS: before 10.12 — fixed in 10.12
• Apple tvOS: before 10.0 — fixed in 10.0
• Apple watchOS: before 3.0 — fixed in 3.0
• xmlsoft libxml2: before 2.9.5 — fixed in 2.9.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Apple Iphone Os 10.0; macOS 10.12; Apple tvOS 10.0; Apple watchOS 3.0; xmlsoft libxml2 2.9.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2016/Sep/msg00006.html
• http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2016/Sep/msg00008.html
• http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2016/Sep/msg00010.html
• http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2016/Sep/msg00011.html
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/93054
• http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1036858
• http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1038623
• https://git.gnome.org/browse/libxml2/commit/?id=c1d1f7121194036608bf555f08d3062a36fd344b
• https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201701-37
• https://support.apple.com/HT207141
• https://support.apple.com/HT207142
• https://support.apple.com/HT207143

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