Vulnerability
curl/libcurl: warning message out-of-buffer read
curl contains a heap out of buffer read vulnerability. The command line tool has a generic function for displaying warning and informational messages to stderr for various situations. For example if an unknown command line argument is used, or passed to it in a "config" file. This display function formats the output to wrap at 80 columns. The wrap logic is however flawed, so if a single word in the message is itself longer than 80 bytes the buffer arithmetic calculates the remainder wrong and ends up reading behind the end of the buffer. This could lead to information disclosure or crash. This vulnerability could lead to a security issue if used in this or similar situations: 1. a server somewhere uses the curl command line to run something 2. if it fails, it shows stderr to the user 3. the server takes user input for parts of its command line input 4. user provides something overly long that triggers this crash 5. the stderr output may now contain user memory contents that was not meant to be available
No CVSS 3.x base score yet. Since April 2026 NVD only enriches priority CVEs (KEV, federal and critical software), so most CVEs are scored only if the assigning CNA included a score in the CVE record, or by GHSA for open-source packages. Last record update .
For interim severity, fall back on KEV / EXPLOIT signals and the EPSS percentile (lower panel). Re-check this CVE after one cron tick — the score lands automatically when the source publishes.
Mid-pack — moderate exploitation likelihood.
No VEX statements published for CVE-2018-16842. Vendors publish VEX (Vulnerability Exploitability eXchange) to assert per-product whether a CVE is actually exploitable in their distribution.
No exploitation, limited impact or prevalence