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Public proof of concept

CVE-2016-6210

A public proof of concept exists; no exploitation attested.

  • Published2017-02-13
  • WeaknessCWE-200

Am I affected?

With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.

Description

sshd in OpenSSH before 7.3, when SHA256 or SHA512 are used for user password hashing, uses BLOWFISH hashing on a static password when the username does not exist, which allows remote attackers to enumerate users by leveraging the timing difference between responses when a large password is provided.

Timeline

dates in UTC
  1. 2017-02-1317:59CVE publishedNVD
  2. 2026-10-2319:23First public proof of conceptPoC-in-GitHub
  3. 2026-10-2319:23EPSS crossed 10 %FIRST EPSS

Observed activity

isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-10-23 18:48 UTC
Indicators tagged with this CVE, per day0 indicators over 7 days
Block these indicators
  • Firewall list (EDL, text): https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2016-6210?format=txt
  • CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2016-6210?format=csv
  • TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
  • The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.

Versions per branch

NVD
OpenSSH
BranchAffectedFixed in
7.2≤ 7.2no fix published

as publishedRanges as NVD and OSV publish them; a distribution’s build can be fixed under an older number.

Fix

Advisories and patches

Detection

read 2026-10-23 19:23 UTC
Nuclei template
none so far
ProjectDiscovery
Exploit-DB
no entry
Exploit-DB

Sources

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Published
2017-02-13
Last Modified
2026-06-17
NVD status
Modified

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2016-6210?

sshd in OpenSSH before 7.3, when SHA256 or SHA512 are used for user password hashing, uses BLOWFISH hashing on a static password when the username does not exist, which allows remote attackers to enumerate users by leveraging the timing difference between responses when a large password is provided.

Is CVE-2016-6210 actively exploited?

A proof-of-concept exploit exists for CVE-2016-6210, but active exploitation has not been confirmed at this time.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2016-6210?

CVE-2016-6210 has a CVSS v3 base score of 5.9 (MEDIUM severity), with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.

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