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CVE-2016-4956

ntpd in NTP 4.x before 4.2.8p8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (interleaved...

5.3 MediumFix available

CVE-2016-4956 is a medium vulnerability (CVSS 5.3) in Ntp, published June 7, 2016. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 16.4%, the 96th percentile. Fixed in ntp 1:4.2.8p8+dfsg-1.

ntpd in NTP 4.x before 4.2.8p8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (interleaved-mode transition and time change) via a spoofed broadcast packet. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2016-1548.

Attack profile

How easy it is to exploit

Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges needed
None
User interaction
None

What an attacker can affect

Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low

Exploit likelihood

16.4%Up 12.0 points since Feb 4, 2022
90%50%10%1%

What each source reports

NVD Score used 5.3

ntpd in NTP 4.x before 4.2.8p8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (interleaved-mode transition and time change) via a spoofed broadcast packet. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2016-1548.

Record
CVE-2016-4956
CVSS 3.1
5.3 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CVSS 2.0
5.0 MediumAV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
Updated
2026-11-02
CVE List No score

ntpd in NTP 4.x before 4.2.8p8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (interleaved-mode transition and time change) via a spoofed broadcast packet. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2016-1548.

Record
CVE-2016-4956
Updated
2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2016-5930 No score

ntpd in NTP 4.x before 4.2.8p8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (interleaved-mode transition and time change) via a spoofed broadcast packet. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2016-1548.

Record
EUVD-2016-5930
Updated
2026-11-03
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-3cjf-rf3w-p8j9 5.3

ntpd in NTP 4.x before 4.2.8p8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (interleaved...

ntpd in NTP 4.x before 4.2.8p8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (interleaved-mode transition and time change) via a spoofed broadcast packet. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2016-1548.

Record
GHSA-3cjf-rf3w-p8j9
CVSS 3.1
5.3 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Updated
2026-11-02
OSV 5.3

ntpd in NTP 4.x before 4.2.8p8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (interleaved-mode transition and time change) via a spoofed broadcast packet. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2016-1548.

Record
CVE-2016-4956
CVSS 3.1
5.3 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVDEBIAN-CVE-2016-4956 5.3

ntpd in NTP 4.x before 4.2.8p8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (interleaved-mode transition and time change) via a spoofed broadcast packet. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2016-1548.

Record
DEBIAN-CVE-2016-4956
CVSS 3.1
5.3 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Updated
2026-11-02
Show 8 moreShow less
OSVUBUNTU-CVE-2016-4956 5.3

ntpd in NTP 4.x before 4.2.8p8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (interleaved-mode transition and time change) via a spoofed broadcast packet. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2016-1548.

Record
UBUNTU-CVE-2016-4956
CVSS 3.1
5.3 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CVSS 3.0
5.8 MediumCVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:L
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVMGASA-2016-0219 No score

Updated ntp packages fix security vulnerability

ntpq and ntpdc disclose the origin timestamp to unauthenticated clients, which may allow an attacker to impersonate a legitimate peer (CVE-2015-8139).

An attacker who is able to spoof packets with correct origin timestamps from enough servers before the expected response packets arrive at the target machine can affect some peer variables and, for example, cause a false leap indication to be set (CVE-2016-4954).

An attacker who is able to spoof a packet with a correct origin timestamp before the expected response packet arrives at the target machine can send a CRYPTO_NAK or a bad MAC and cause the association's peer variables to be cleared. If this can be done often enough, it will prevent that association from working (CVE-2016-4955).

The fix for CVE-2016-1548 does not cover broadcast associations, so broadcast clients can be triggered to flip into interleave mode (CVE-2016-4956).

Record
MGASA-2016-0219
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVopenSUSE-SU-2024:10181-1 No score

ntp-4.2.8p9-1.1 on GA media

These are all security issues fixed in the ntp-4.2.8p9-1.1 package on the GA media of openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Record
openSUSE-SU-2024:10181-1
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVSUSE-SU-2016:1563-1 No score

Security update for ntp

ntp was updated to version 4.2.8p8 to fix five security issues.

These security issues were fixed:

  • CVE-2016-4953: Bad authentication demobilizes ephemeral associations (bsc#982065).
  • CVE-2016-4954: Processing spoofed server packets (bsc#982066).
  • CVE-2016-4955: Autokey association reset (bsc#982067).
  • CVE-2016-4956: Broadcast interleave (bsc#982068).
  • CVE-2016-4957: CRYPTO_NAK crash (bsc#982064).

These non-security issues were fixed:

  • Keep the parent process alive until the daemon has finished initialisation, to make sure that the PID file exists when the parent returns.
  • bsc#979302: Change the process name of the forking DNS worker process to avoid the impression that ntpd is started twice.
  • bsc#981422: Don't ignore SIGCHILD because it breaks wait().
  • bsc#979981: ntp-wait does not accept fractional seconds, so use 1 instead of 0.2 in ntp-wait.service.
  • Separate the creation of ntp.keys and key #1 in it to avoid problems when upgrading installations that have the file, but no key #1, which is needed e.g. by 'rcntp addserver'.
Record
SUSE-SU-2016:1563-1
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVSUSE-SU-2016:1568-1 No score

Security update for ntp

ntp was updated to version 4.2.8p8 to fix 17 security issues.

These security issues were fixed:

  • CVE-2016-4956: Broadcast interleave (bsc#982068).
  • CVE-2016-2518: Crafted addpeer with hmode > 7 causes array wraparound with MATCH_ASSOC (bsc#977457).
  • CVE-2016-2519: ctl_getitem() return value not always checked (bsc#977458).
  • CVE-2016-4954: Processing spoofed server packets (bsc#982066).
  • CVE-2016-4955: Autokey association reset (bsc#982067).
  • CVE-2015-7974: NTP did not verify peer associations of symmetric keys when authenticating packets, which might allowed remote attackers to conduct impersonation attacks via an arbitrary trusted key, aka a 'skeleton key (bsc#962960).
  • CVE-2016-4957: CRYPTO_NAK crash (bsc#982064).
  • CVE-2016-2516: Duplicate IPs on unconfig directives will cause an assertion botch (bsc#977452).
  • CVE-2016-2517: Remote configuration trustedkey/requestkey values are not properly validated (bsc#977455).
  • CVE-2016-4953: Bad authentication demobilizes ephemeral associations (bsc#982065).
  • CVE-2016-1547: CRYPTO-NAK DoS (bsc#977459).
  • CVE-2016-1551: Refclock impersonation vulnerability, AKA: refclock-peering (bsc#977450).
  • CVE-2016-1550: Improve NTP security against buffer comparison timing attacks, authdecrypt-timing, AKA: authdecrypt-timing (bsc#977464).
  • CVE-2016-1548: Interleave-pivot - MITIGATION ONLY (bsc#977461).
  • CVE-2016-1549: Sybil vulnerability: ephemeral association attack, AKA: ntp-sybil - MITIGATION ONLY (bsc#977451).

This release also contained improved patches for CVE-2015-7704, CVE-2015-7705, CVE-2015-7974.

These non-security issues were fixed:

  • bsc#979302: Change the process name of the forking DNS worker process to avoid the impression that ntpd is started twice.
  • bsc#981422: Don't ignore SIGCHILD because it breaks wait().
  • bsc#979981: ntp-wait does not accept fractional seconds, so use 1 instead of 0.2 in ntp-wait.service.
  • Separate the creation of ntp.keys and key #1 in it to avoid problems when upgrading installations that have the file, but no key #1, which is needed e.g. by 'rcntp addserver'.
  • bsc#957226: Restrict the parser in the startup script to the first occurrance of 'keys' and 'controlkey' in ntp.conf.
Record
SUSE-SU-2016:1568-1
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVSUSE-SU-2016:1584-1 No score

Security update for ntp

ntp was updated to version 4.2.8p8 to fix five security issues.

These security issues were fixed:

  • CVE-2016-4953: Bad authentication demobilizes ephemeral associations (bsc#982065).
  • CVE-2016-4954: Processing spoofed server packets (bsc#982066).
  • CVE-2016-4955: Autokey association reset (bsc#982067).
  • CVE-2016-4956: Broadcast interleave (bsc#982068).
  • CVE-2016-4957: CRYPTO_NAK crash (bsc#982064).

These non-security issues were fixed:

  • Keep the parent process alive until the daemon has finished initialisation, to make sure that the PID file exists when the parent returns.
  • bsc#979302: Change the process name of the forking DNS worker process to avoid the impression that ntpd is started twice.
  • bsc#981422: Don't ignore SIGCHILD because it breaks wait().
  • Separate the creation of ntp.keys and key #1 in it to avoid problems when upgrading installations that have the file, but no key #1, which is needed e.g. by 'rcntp addserver'.
Record
SUSE-SU-2016:1584-1
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVSUSE-SU-2016:1602-1 No score

Security update for ntp

ntp was updated to version 4.2.8p8 to fix five security issues.

These security issues were fixed:

  • CVE-2016-4953: Bad authentication demobilizes ephemeral associations (bsc#982065).
  • CVE-2016-4954: Processing spoofed server packets (bsc#982066).
  • CVE-2016-4955: Autokey association reset (bsc#982067).
  • CVE-2016-4956: Broadcast interleave (bsc#982068).
  • CVE-2016-4957: CRYPTO_NAK crash (bsc#982064).

These non-security issues were fixed:

  • Keep the parent process alive until the daemon has finished initialisation, to make sure that the PID file exists when the parent returns.
  • bsc#979302: Change the process name of the forking DNS worker process to avoid the impression that ntpd is started twice.
  • bsc#981422: Don't ignore SIGCHILD because it breaks wait().
Record
SUSE-SU-2016:1602-1
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVUSN-3096-1 No score

ntp vulnerabilities

Aanchal Malhotra discovered that NTP incorrectly handled authenticated broadcast mode. A remote attacker could use this issue to perform a replay attack. (CVE-2015-7973)

Matt Street discovered that NTP incorrectly verified peer associations of symmetric keys. A remote attacker could use this issue to perform an impersonation attack. (CVE-2015-7974)

Jonathan Gardner discovered that the NTP ntpq utility incorrectly handled memory. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause ntpq to crash, resulting in a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. (CVE-2015-7975)

Jonathan Gardner discovered that the NTP ntpq utility incorrectly handled dangerous characters in filenames. An attacker could possibly use this issue to overwrite arbitrary files. (CVE-2015-7976)

Stephen Gray discovered that NTP incorrectly handled large restrict lists. An attacker could use this issue to cause NTP to crash, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2015-7977, CVE-2015-7978)

Aanchal Malhotra discovered that NTP incorrectly handled authenticated broadcast mode. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause NTP to crash, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2015-7979)

Jonathan Gardner discovered that NTP incorrectly handled origin timestamp checks. A remote attacker could use this issue to spoof peer servers. (CVE-2015-8138)

Jonathan Gardner discovered that the NTP ntpq utility did not properly handle certain incorrect values. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause ntpq to hang, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2015-8158)

It was discovered that the NTP cronjob incorrectly cleaned up the statistics directory. A local attacker could possibly use this to escalate privileges. (CVE-2016-0727)

Stephen Gray and Matthew Van Gundy discovered that NTP incorrectly validated crypto-NAKs. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to prevent clients from synchronizing. (CVE-2016-1547)

Miroslav Lichvar and Jonathan Gardner discovered that NTP incorrectly handled switching to interleaved symmetric mode. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to prevent clients from synchronizing. (CVE-2016-1548)

Matthew Van Gundy, Stephen Gray and Loganaden Velvindron discovered that NTP incorrectly handled message authentication. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to recover the message digest key. (CVE-2016-1550)

Yihan Lian discovered that NTP incorrectly handled duplicate IPs on unconfig directives. An authenticated remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause NTP to crash, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2016-2516)

Yihan Lian discovered that NTP incorrectly handled certail peer associations. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause NTP to crash, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2016-2518)

Jakub Prokes discovered that NTP incorrectly handled certain spoofed packets. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2016-4954)

Miroslav Lichvar discovered that NTP incorrectly handled certain packets when autokey is enabled. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2016-4955)

Miroslav Lichvar discovered that NTP incorrectly handled certain spoofed broadcast packets. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2016-4956)

In the default installation, attackers would be isolated by the NTP AppArmor profile.

Record
USN-3096-1
Updated
2026-11-02

Affected products

Affected packages

Affected packages
PackageAffectedFixed
ntp
Debian:11
before 1:4.2.8p8+dfsg-1
1:4.2.8p8+dfsg-1
ntp
Mageia:5
before 4.2.6p5-24.6.mga5
4.2.6p5-24.6.mga5
ntp
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP1
before 4.2.8p8-14.1
4.2.8p8-14.1
ntp
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP1
before 4.2.8p8-14.1
4.2.8p8-14.1
ntp
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 12 SP1
before 4.2.8p8-14.1
4.2.8p8-14.1
ntp
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Desktop 12
before 4.2.8p8-46.8.1
4.2.8p8-46.8.1
ntp
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 12
before 4.2.8p8-46.8.1
4.2.8p8-46.8.1
ntp
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 12
before 4.2.8p8-46.8.1
4.2.8p8-46.8.1
ntp
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP4
before 4.2.8p8-14.1
4.2.8p8-14.1
ntp
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 11 SP4
before 4.2.8p8-14.1
4.2.8p8-14.1
Show 9 moreShow less
Affected packages
PackageAffectedFixed
ntp
SUSE:OpenStack Cloud 5
before 4.2.8p8-47.3
4.2.8p8-47.3
ntp
SUSE:Manager 2.1
before 4.2.8p8-47.3
4.2.8p8-47.3
ntp
SUSE:Manager Proxy 2.1
before 4.2.8p8-47.3
4.2.8p8-47.3
ntp
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2-LTSS
before 4.2.8p8-47.3
4.2.8p8-47.3
ntp
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3-LTSS
before 4.2.8p8-47.3
4.2.8p8-47.3
ntp
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3-TERADATA
before 4.2.8p8-47.3
4.2.8p8-47.3
ntp
Ubuntu:14.04:LTS
before 1:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2.14.04.10, plus listed versions
1:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu21:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2.14.04.11:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2.14.04.21:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2.14.04.31:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2.14.04.51:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2.14.04.61:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2.14.04.71:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2.14.04.8
1:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu2.14.04.10
ntp
Ubuntu:16.04:LTS
before 1:4.2.8p4+dfsg-3ubuntu5.3, plus listed versions
1:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu81:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu8.11:4.2.6.p5+dfsg-3ubuntu91:4.2.8p4+dfsg-3ubuntu11:4.2.8p4+dfsg-3ubuntu2
Show 5 moreShow less
1:4.2.8p4+dfsg-3ubuntu31:4.2.8p4+dfsg-3ubuntu41:4.2.8p4+dfsg-3ubuntu51:4.2.8p4+dfsg-3ubuntu5.11:4.2.8p4+dfsg-3ubuntu5.2
1:4.2.8p4+dfsg-3ubuntu5.3
ntp
openSUSE:Tumbleweed
before 4.2.8p9-1.1
4.2.8p9-1.1

History

History
WhenChangedSources
2026-11-03aliasesEUVD
2026-11-02createdCVE List, GitHub Advisories, NVD, OSV

References

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