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CVE-2026-16599

MEDIUMCVSS 5.1/10EPSS 0.38%

Last modified

CVE-2026-16599 is a medium-severity vulnerability rated 5.1/10 on the CVSS scale. GNU wget is vulnerable to denial of service in its FTP OPIE/S-KEY authentication functionality. The server-supplied sequence number from the FTP challenge line is used as an iteration count for an MD5 key-derivation loop without any upper bound validation. EPSS estimates a 0.38% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

Description

GNU wget is vulnerable to denial of service in its FTP OPIE/S-KEY authentication functionality. The server-supplied sequence number from the FTP challenge line is used as an iteration count for an MD5 key-derivation loop without any upper bound validation. A malicious FTP server or a network attacker positioned to intercept FTP traffic can send a crafted OPIE challenge with a sequence number near INT_MAX, causing wget to perform up to approximately 2.1 billion MD5 computations and suspend for some time. The --timeout option does not mitigate this because it applies only to network I/O, not CPU computation. This issue was fixed in commit e9697d98e7249b0f68a6be040a4f3dcc5bc101fa

Metrics

CVSS 4.0
5.1/10

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

EPSS Probability
0.38%

30.8th percentile

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. Learn more

Weakness Enumeration

Affected Software

Source: CNA advisory (CVE.org). NVD analysis pending.

VendorProductVersions
GNUwget<= 1.25.0

References

Timeline

Published
Last Modified
Status
Deferred

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2026-16599?
GNU wget is vulnerable to denial of service in its FTP OPIE/S-KEY authentication functionality. The server-supplied sequence number from the FTP challenge line is used as an iteration count for an MD5 key-derivation loop without any upper bound validation. A malicious FTP server or a network attacker positioned to intercept FTP traffic can send a crafted OPIE challenge with a sequence number near INT_MAX, causing wget to perform up to approximately 2.1 billion MD5 computations and suspend for some time. The --timeout option does not mitigate this because it applies only to network I/O, not CPU computation. This issue was fixed in commit e9697d98e7249b0f68a6be040a4f3dcc5bc101fa
How severe is CVE-2026-16599?
CVE-2026-16599 has a CVSS score of 5.1/10 (MEDIUM severity). The EPSS model estimates a 0.38% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.
How do I fix CVE-2026-16599?
Check the vendor references and advisories linked above for patched versions and mitigation guidance. You can also run a Strix scan to test if your systems are affected.

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Source: NVD / NIST