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    CVE-2017-16544

    In the add_match function in libbb/lineedit.c in BusyBox through 1.27.2, the tab autocomplete feature of the shell, used to get a list of filenames in a directory, does not sanitize filenames and results in executing any escape sequence in the terminal. This could potentially result in code execution, arbitrary file writes, or other attacks.

    Published:Nov 8, 2017
    Last Modified:Jun 9, 2025
    EPS:Nov 20, 2017
    EPSS Score:0.01248
    CVSS Score:8.8

    Affected Products

    Vendor
    Busybox
    Product
    Busybox
    Vendor
    Canonical
    Product
    Ubuntu Linux
    Vendor
    Debian
    Product
    Debian Linux
    Vendor
    Redlion
    Product
    N-tron 702-w
    Vendor
    Redlion
    Product
    N-tron 702-w Firmware
    Vendor
    Redlion
    Product
    N-tron 702m12-w
    Vendor
    Redlion
    Product
    N-tron 702m12-w Firmware
    Vendor
    Vmware
    Product
    Esxi

    Exploits

    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/154361/Cisco-Device-Hardcoded-Credentials-GNU-glibc-BusyBox.htmlhttp://packetstormsecurity.com/files/154536/VMware-Security-Advisory-2019-0013.htmlhttp://packetstormsecurity.com/files/167552/Nexans-FTTO-GigaSwitch-Outdated-Components-Hardcoded-Backdoor.htmlhttp://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2019/Jun/18http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2019/Sep/7http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Aug/20http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Mar/15http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Sep/6http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Aug/21http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Jan/39http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2022/Jun/36https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Jun/14https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Sep/7http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/154361/Cisco-Device-Hardcoded-Credentials-GNU-glibc-BusyBox.htmlhttp://packetstormsecurity.com/files/154536/VMware-Security-Advisory-2019-0013.htmlhttp://packetstormsecurity.com/files/167552/Nexans-FTTO-GigaSwitch-Outdated-Components-Hardcoded-Backdoor.htmlhttp://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2019/Jun/18http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2019/Sep/7http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Aug/20http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Mar/15http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Sep/6http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Aug/21http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Jan/39http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2022/Jun/36https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Jun/14https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Sep/7

    Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

    CAPEC-10 Buffer Overflow via Environment Variables
    CAPEC-101 Server Side Include (SSI) Injection
    CAPEC-104 Cross Zone Scripting
    CAPEC-108 Command Line Execution through SQL Injection
    CAPEC-109 Object Relational Mapping Injection
    CAPEC-110 SQL Injection through SOAP Parameter Tampering
    CAPEC-120 Double Encoding
    CAPEC-13 Subverting Environment Variable Values
    CAPEC-135 Format String Injection
    CAPEC-136 LDAP Injection
    CAPEC-14 Client-side Injection-induced Buffer Overflow
    CAPEC-153 Input Data Manipulation
    CAPEC-182 Flash Injection
    CAPEC-209 XSS Using MIME Type Mismatch
    CAPEC-22 Exploiting Trust in Client
    CAPEC-23 File Content Injection
    CAPEC-230 Serialized Data with Nested Payloads
    CAPEC-231 Oversized Serialized Data Payloads
    CAPEC-24 Filter Failure through Buffer Overflow
    CAPEC-242 Code Injection
    CAPEC-250 XML Injection
    CAPEC-261 Fuzzing for garnering other adjacent user/sensitive data
    CAPEC-267 Leverage Alternate Encoding
    CAPEC-28 Fuzzing
    CAPEC-3 Using Leading 'Ghost' Character Sequences to Bypass Input Filters
    CAPEC-31 Accessing/Intercepting/Modifying HTTP Cookies
    CAPEC-35 Leverage Executable Code in Non-Executable Files
    CAPEC-42 MIME Conversion
    CAPEC-43 Exploiting Multiple Input Interpretation Layers
    CAPEC-45 Buffer Overflow via Symbolic Links
    CAPEC-46 Overflow Variables and Tags
    CAPEC-47 Buffer Overflow via Parameter Expansion
    CAPEC-473 Signature Spoof
    CAPEC-52 Embedding NULL Bytes
    CAPEC-53 Postfix, Null Terminate, and Backslash
    CAPEC-588 DOM-Based XSS
    CAPEC-63 Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
    CAPEC-64 Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic
    CAPEC-664 Server Side Request Forgery
    CAPEC-67 String Format Overflow in syslog()
    CAPEC-7 Blind SQL Injection
    CAPEC-71 Using Unicode Encoding to Bypass Validation Logic
    CAPEC-72 URL Encoding
    CAPEC-73 User-Controlled Filename
    CAPEC-77 Manipulating User-Controlled Variables
    CAPEC-78 Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding
    CAPEC-79 Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding
    CAPEC-8 Buffer Overflow in an API Call
    CAPEC-80 Using UTF-8 Encoding to Bypass Validation Logic
    CAPEC-81 Web Server Logs Tampering
    CAPEC-83 XPath Injection
    CAPEC-85 AJAX Footprinting
    CAPEC-88 OS Command Injection
    CAPEC-9 Buffer Overflow in Local Command-Line Utilities

    Related CVEs

    CVE-2026-76014 (CVSS 1.9) — A vulnerability has been found in BusyBox up to 1.30.1. This vulnerability affects unknown code of the file ne…
    CVE-2026-38755 (CVSS 2.9) — A heap overflow in the evalcommand() function (shell/ash.c) of Busybox v1.38.0 allows attackers to cause a Den…
    CVE-2026-38753 (CVSS 4.9) — A use-after-free in the awk_sub() function (editors/awk.c) of Busybox v1.38.0 allows attackers to cause a Deni…
    CVE-2026-38754 (CVSS 5.1) — A heap overflow in the ifsbreakup() function (shell/ash.c) of Busybox v1.38.0 allows attackers to cause a Deni…
    CVE-2026-38752 (CVSS 2.9) — A stack overflow in the evaluate() function (editors/awk.c) of BusyBox commit 371fe9 allows attackers to cause…
    CVE-2025-60876 (CVSS 6.5) — BusyBox wget thru 1.3.7 accepted raw CR (0x0D)/LF (0x0A) and other C0 control bytes in the HTTP request-target…
    CVE-2025-12221 (CVSS 2.1) — Busybox 1.31.1 - Multiple Known Vulnerabilities.This issue affects BLU-IC2: through 1.19.5; BLU-IC4: through 1…
    CVE-2025-12220 (CVSS 10) — Busybox 1.31.1 - Multiple Known Vulnerabilities.This issue affects BLU-IC2: through 1.19.5; BLU-IC4: through 1…
    CVE-2024-58251 (CVSS 2.5) — In netstat in BusyBox through 1.37.0, local users can launch of network application with an argv[0] containing…
    CVE-2025-46394 (CVSS 3.2) — In tar in BusyBox through 1.37.0, a TAR archive can have filenames hidden from a listing through the use of te…

    References

    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/154361/Cisco-Device-Hardcoded-Credentials-GNU-glibc-BusyBox.html
    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/154536/VMware-Security-Advisory-2019-0013.html
    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/167552/Nexans-FTTO-GigaSwitch-Outdated-Components-Hardcoded-Backdoor.html
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2019/Jun/18
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2019/Sep/7
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Aug/20
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Mar/15
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Sep/6
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Aug/21
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Jan/39
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2022/Jun/36
    http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2019-0013.html
    https://git.busybox.net/busybox/commit/?id=c3797d40a1c57352192c6106cc0f435e7d9c11e8
    https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/07/msg00037.html
    https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/02/msg00020.html
    https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Jun/14
    https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Sep/7
    https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ics/advisories/icsa-20-240-01
    https://usn.ubuntu.com/3935-1/
    https://www.twistlock.com/2017/11/20/cve-2017-16544-busybox-autocompletion-vulnerability/
    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/154361/Cisco-Device-Hardcoded-Credentials-GNU-glibc-BusyBox.html
    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/154536/VMware-Security-Advisory-2019-0013.html
    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/167552/Nexans-FTTO-GigaSwitch-Outdated-Components-Hardcoded-Backdoor.html
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2019/Jun/18
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2019/Sep/7
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Aug/20
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Mar/15
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Sep/6
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Aug/21
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Jan/39
    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2022/Jun/36
    http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2019-0013.html
    https://git.busybox.net/busybox/commit/?id=c3797d40a1c57352192c6106cc0f435e7d9c11e8
    https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/07/msg00037.html
    https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/02/msg00020.html
    https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Jun/14
    https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Sep/7
    https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ics/advisories/icsa-20-240-01
    https://usn.ubuntu.com/3935-1/
    https://www.twistlock.com/2017/11/20/cve-2017-16544-busybox-autocompletion-vulnerability/

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High