HOMEVULNERABILITIESCVE-2016-9938
MEDIUM

CVE-2016-9938

CWE-285Published: December 12, 2016· Updated: Jun 17, 2026

5.3
CVSS v3.1

Official Description

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.

NVD Source

Technical Analysis

CVE-2016-9938 can be exploited remotely over the network without requiring physical or adjacent access, significantly expanding the attack surface for threat actors.

The vulnerability requires no privileges and no user interaction, making it a prime target for automated exploitation campaigns and worm-like propagation.

CVSS v3.1 Vector Breakdown

Exploitability
Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges Req.None
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
Impact
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Affected Vendors & Products

digium2 product(s)
asteriskcertified asterisk
Source: NVD CPE · 91 total CPE entries

Exploit & PoC Resources

NO KNOWN EXPLOITNo public exploit confirmed at this time
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Official Patches & Advisories

All References (6)

Quick Facts

CVE IDCVE-2016-9938
CVSS Score5.3 / 10
SeverityMEDIUM
WeaknessCWE-285
CISA KEVNo
Affected1 vendor(s)
PublishedDec 12, 2016

Related CVEs (CWE-285)

Recommended Actions

  • Apply vendor patches immediately
  • Monitor CVE-2016-9938 in threat intel feeds
  • Review IDS/IPS signatures for exploitation attempts
Data sourced from NVD (NIST), CISA KEV, and EPSS (FIRST). Analysis generated by CTIWATCH.COM. CVE data is provided under the NVD usage policy.