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CVE-2016-9938

An issue was discovered in Asterisk Open Source 11.x before 11.25.1, 13.x before 13.13.1, and 14...

5.3 MediumFix available

An issue was discovered in Asterisk Open Source 11.x before 11.25.1, 13.x before 13.13.1, and 14.x before 14.2.1 and Certified Asterisk 11.x before 11.6-cert16 and 13.x before 13.8-cert4. The chan_sip channel driver has a liberal definition for whitespace when attempting to strip the content between a SIP header name and a colon character. Rather than following RFC 3261 and stripping only spaces and horizontal tabs, Asterisk treats any non-printable ASCII character as if it were whitespace. This means that headers such as Contact\x01: will be seen as a valid Contact header. This mostly does not pose a problem until Asterisk is placed in tandem with an authenticating SIP proxy. In such a case, a crafty combination of valid and invalid To headers can cause a proxy to allow an INVITE request into Asterisk without authentication since it believes the request is an in-dialog request. However, because of the bug described above, the request will look like an out-of-dialog request to Asterisk. Asterisk will then process the request as a new call. The result is that Asterisk can process calls from unvetted sources without any authentication. If you do not use a proxy for authentication, then this issue does not affect you. If your proxy is dialog-aware (meaning that the proxy keeps track of what dialogs are currently valid), then this issue does not affect you. If you use chan_pjsip instead of chan_sip, then this issue does not affect you.

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
Low
Availability
None

Exploit likelihood

3.43%Up 1.5 points since Feb 4, 2022
90%50%10%1%

What each source reports

NVD Score used 5.3

An issue was discovered in Asterisk Open Source 11.x before 11.25.1, 13.x before 13.13.1, and 14.x before 14.2.1 and Certified Asterisk 11.x before 11.6-cert16 and 13.x before 13.8-cert4. The chan_sip channel driver has a liberal definition for whitespace when attempting to strip the content between a SIP header name and a colon character. Rather than following RFC 3261 and stripping only spaces and horizontal tabs, Asterisk treats any non-printable ASCII character as if it were whitespace. This means that headers such as Contact\x01: will be seen as a valid Contact header. This mostly does not pose a problem until Asterisk is placed in tandem with an authenticating SIP proxy. In such a case, a crafty combination of valid and invalid To headers can cause a proxy to allow an INVITE request into Asterisk without authentication since it believes the request is an in-dialog request. However, because of the bug described above, the request will look like an out-of-dialog request to Asterisk. Asterisk will then process the request as a new call. The result is that Asterisk can process calls from unvetted sources without any authentication. If you do not use a proxy for authentication, then this issue does not affect you. If your proxy is dialog-aware (meaning that the proxy keeps track of what dialogs are currently valid), then this issue does not affect you. If you use chan_pjsip instead of chan_sip, then this issue does not affect you.

Record
CVE-2016-9938
CVSS 3.0
5.3 MediumCVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
CVSS 2.0
5.0 MediumAV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N
Weakness
CWE-285
Updated
2026-11-02
CVE List No score

An issue was discovered in Asterisk Open Source 11.x before 11.25.1, 13.x before 13.13.1, and 14.x before 14.2.1 and Certified Asterisk 11.x before 11.6-cert16 and 13.x before 13.8-cert4. The chan_sip channel driver has a liberal definition for whitespace when attempting to strip the content between a SIP header name and a colon character. Rather than following RFC 3261 and stripping only spaces and horizontal tabs, Asterisk treats any non-printable ASCII character as if it were whitespace. This means that headers such as Contact\x01: will be seen as a valid Contact header. This mostly does not pose a problem until Asterisk is placed in tandem with an authenticating SIP proxy. In such a case, a crafty combination of valid and invalid To headers can cause a proxy to allow an INVITE request into Asterisk without authentication since it believes the request is an in-dialog request. However, because of the bug described above, the request will look like an out-of-dialog request to Asterisk. Asterisk will then process the request as a new call. The result is that Asterisk can process calls from unvetted sources without any authentication. If you do not use a proxy for authentication, then this issue does not affect you. If your proxy is dialog-aware (meaning that the proxy keeps track of what dialogs are currently valid), then this issue does not affect you. If you use chan_pjsip instead of chan_sip, then this issue does not affect you.

Record
CVE-2016-9938
Updated
2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2016-10725 No score

An issue was discovered in Asterisk Open Source 11.x before 11.25.1, 13.x before 13.13.1, and 14.x before 14.2.1 and Certified Asterisk 11.x before 11.6-cert16 and 13.x before 13.8-cert4. The chan_sip channel driver has a liberal definition for whitespace when attempting to strip the content between a SIP header name and a colon character. Rather than following RFC 3261 and stripping only spaces and horizontal tabs, Asterisk treats any non-printable ASCII character as if it were whitespace. This means that headers such as Contact\x01: will be seen as a valid Contact header. This mostly does not pose a problem until Asterisk is placed in tandem with an authenticating SIP proxy. In such a case, a crafty combination of valid and invalid To headers can cause a proxy to allow an INVITE request into Asterisk without authentication since it believes the request is an in-dialog request. However, because of the bug described above, the request will look like an out-of-dialog request to Asterisk. Asterisk will then process the request as a new call. The result is that Asterisk can process calls from unvetted sources without any authentication. If you do not use a proxy for authentication, then this issue does not affect you. If your proxy is dialog-aware (meaning that the proxy keeps track of what dialogs are currently valid), then this issue does not affect you. If you use chan_pjsip instead of chan_sip, then this issue does not affect you.

Record
EUVD-2016-10725
Updated
2026-11-03
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-4h4c-qgxg-p3qv 5.3

An issue was discovered in Asterisk Open Source 11.x before 11.25.1, 13.x before 13.13.1, and 14...

An issue was discovered in Asterisk Open Source 11.x before 11.25.1, 13.x before 13.13.1, and 14.x before 14.2.1 and Certified Asterisk 11.x before 11.6-cert16 and 13.x before 13.8-cert4. The chan_sip channel driver has a liberal definition for whitespace when attempting to strip the content between a SIP header name and a colon character. Rather than following RFC 3261 and stripping only spaces and horizontal tabs, Asterisk treats any non-printable ASCII character as if it were whitespace. This means that headers such as Contact\x01: will be seen as a valid Contact header. This mostly does not pose a problem until Asterisk is placed in tandem with an authenticating SIP proxy. In such a case, a crafty combination of valid and invalid To headers can cause a proxy to allow an INVITE request into Asterisk without authentication since it believes the request is an in-dialog request. However, because of the bug described above, the request will look like an out-of-dialog request to Asterisk. Asterisk will then process the request as a new call. The result is that Asterisk can process calls from unvetted sources without any authentication. If you do not use a proxy for authentication, then this issue does not affect you. If your proxy is dialog-aware (meaning that the proxy keeps track of what dialogs are currently valid), then this issue does not affect you. If you use chan_pjsip instead of chan_sip, then this issue does not affect you.

Record
GHSA-4h4c-qgxg-p3qv
CVSS 3.0
5.3 MediumCVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Weakness
CWE-285
Updated
2026-11-02
OSV 5.3

An issue was discovered in Asterisk Open Source 11.x before 11.25.1, 13.x before 13.13.1, and 14.x before 14.2.1 and Certified Asterisk 11.x before 11.6-cert16 and 13.x before 13.8-cert4. The chan_sip channel driver has a liberal definition for whitespace when attempting to strip the content between a SIP header name and a colon character. Rather than following RFC 3261 and stripping only spaces and horizontal tabs, Asterisk treats any non-printable ASCII character as if it were whitespace. This means that headers such as Contact\x01: will be seen as a valid Contact header. This mostly does not pose a problem until Asterisk is placed in tandem with an authenticating SIP proxy. In such a case, a crafty combination of valid and invalid To headers can cause a proxy to allow an INVITE request into Asterisk without authentication since it believes the request is an in-dialog request. However, because of the bug described above, the request will look like an out-of-dialog request to Asterisk. Asterisk will then process the request as a new call. The result is that Asterisk can process calls from unvetted sources without any authentication. If you do not use a proxy for authentication, then this issue does not affect you. If your proxy is dialog-aware (meaning that the proxy keeps track of what dialogs are currently valid), then this issue does not affect you. If you use chan_pjsip instead of chan_sip, then this issue does not affect you.

Record
CVE-2016-9938
CVSS 3.0
5.3 MediumCVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVDEBIAN-CVE-2016-9938 5.3

An issue was discovered in Asterisk Open Source 11.x before 11.25.1, 13.x before 13.13.1, and 14.x before 14.2.1 and Certified Asterisk 11.x before 11.6-cert16 and 13.x before 13.8-cert4. The chan_sip channel driver has a liberal definition for whitespace when attempting to strip the content between a SIP header name and a colon character. Rather than following RFC 3261 and stripping only spaces and horizontal tabs, Asterisk treats any non-printable ASCII character as if it were whitespace. This means that headers such as Contact\x01: will be seen as a valid Contact header. This mostly does not pose a problem until Asterisk is placed in tandem with an authenticating SIP proxy. In such a case, a crafty combination of valid and invalid To headers can cause a proxy to allow an INVITE request into Asterisk without authentication since it believes the request is an in-dialog request. However, because of the bug described above, the request will look like an out-of-dialog request to Asterisk. Asterisk will then process the request as a new call. The result is that Asterisk can process calls from unvetted sources without any authentication. If you do not use a proxy for authentication, then this issue does not affect you. If your proxy is dialog-aware (meaning that the proxy keeps track of what dialogs are currently valid), then this issue does not affect you. If you use chan_pjsip instead of chan_sip, then this issue does not affect you.

Record
DEBIAN-CVE-2016-9938
CVSS 3.0
5.3 MediumCVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVUBUNTU-CVE-2016-9938 5.3

An issue was discovered in Asterisk Open Source 11.x before 11.25.1, 13.x before 13.13.1, and 14.x before 14.2.1 and Certified Asterisk 11.x before 11.6-cert16 and 13.x before 13.8-cert4. The chan_sip channel driver has a liberal definition for whitespace when attempting to strip the content between a SIP header name and a colon character. Rather than following RFC 3261 and stripping only spaces and horizontal tabs, Asterisk treats any non-printable ASCII character as if it were whitespace. This means that headers such as Contact\x01: will be seen as a valid Contact header. This mostly does not pose a problem until Asterisk is placed in tandem with an authenticating SIP proxy. In such a case, a crafty combination of valid and invalid To headers can cause a proxy to allow an INVITE request into Asterisk without authentication since it believes the request is an in-dialog request. However, because of the bug described above, the request will look like an out-of-dialog request to Asterisk. Asterisk will then process the request as a new call. The result is that Asterisk can process calls from unvetted sources without any authentication. If you do not use a proxy for authentication, then this issue does not affect you. If your proxy is dialog-aware (meaning that the proxy keeps track of what dialogs are currently valid), then this issue does not affect you. If you use chan_pjsip instead of chan_sip, then this issue does not affect you.

Record
UBUNTU-CVE-2016-9938
CVSS 3.0
5.3 MediumCVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Updated
2026-11-02

Affected products

Affected packages

Affected packages
PackageAffectedFixed
asterisk
Debian:14
before 1:13.13.1~dfsg-1, plus listed versions
0.1.11-30.1.11-3woody11:1.0.5-21:1.0.5-41:1.0.6-1
Show 45 moreShow less
1:1.0.6-21:1.0.7-11:1.0.7.dfsg.1-11:1.0.7.dfsg.1-21:1.0.7.dfsg.1-2sarge11:1.0.7.dfsg.1-2sarge21:1.0.7.dfsg.1-2sarge31:1.0.7.dfsg.1-2sarge41:1.0.7.dfsg.1-2sarge51:1.0.7.dfsg.1-2sarge61:1.0.9.dfsg-11:1.0.9.dfsg-31:1.0.9.dfsg-41:1.0.9.dfsg-51:1.0.9.dfsg-61:1.2.0-beta1.dfsg-11:1.2.0-beta2.dfsg-11:1.2.0-beta2.dfsg-21:1.2.0-beta2.dfsg-31:1.2.0-rc1.dfsg-11:1.2.0-rc2.dfsg-11:1.2.0.dfsg-11:1.2.0.dfsg-21:1.2.0.dfsg-31:1.2.0.dfsg-41:1.2.0.dfsg-51:1.2.0.dfsg-61:1.2.1.dfsg-11:1.2.1.dfsg-21:1.2.1.dfsg-31:1.2.10.dfsg-11:1.2.10.dfsg-1bpo11:1.2.10.dfsg-21:1.2.10.dfsg-31:1.2.11.dfsg-11:1.2.12.1.dfsg-11:1.2.13~dfsg-11:1.2.13~dfsg-21:1.2.13~dfsg-2etch11:1.2.13~dfsg-2etch21:1.2.13~dfsg-2etch31:1.2.13~dfsg-2etch41:1.2.14~dfsg-11:1.2.14~dfsg-21:1.2.14~dfsg-3
1:13.13.1~dfsg-1
asterisk
Ubuntu:Pro:16.04:LTS
All versions, plus listed versions
1:13.1.0~dfsg-1.1ubuntu31:13.1.0~dfsg-1.1ubuntu41:13.1.0~dfsg-1.1ubuntu4.11:13.1.0~dfsg-1.1ubuntu4.1+esm1
None known

History

History
RecordedChangedSources
aliasesEUVD
first indexedCVE List, GitHub Advisories, NVD, OSV

Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.

In short

CVE-2016-9938 is a medium vulnerability (CVSS 5.3) in Digium Asterisk, published December 12, 2016. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 3.43%, the 88th percentile. Fixed in asterisk 1:13.13.1~dfsg-1.

References

This page doesn't list everything

Left out here: 152 versions. The JSON record has them.

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