trn Threaded USENET News Reader 3.6-23 out-of-bounds write

CVSS Meta Temp Score
CVSS is a standardized scoring system to determine possibilities of attacks. The Temp Score considers temporal factors like disclosure, exploit and countermeasures. The unique Meta Score calculates the average score of different sources to provide a normalized scoring system.
Current Exploit Price (≈)
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CTI Interest Score
Our Cyber Threat Intelligence team is monitoring different web sites, mailing lists, exploit markets and social media networks. The CTI Interest Score identifies the interest of attackers and the security community for this specific vulnerability in real-time. A high score indicates an elevated risk to be targeted for this vulnerability.
6.6$0-$5k0.62

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in trn Threaded USENET News Reader 3.6-23. It has been declared as critical. This issue affects some unknown processing. Executing a manipulation can lead to out-of-bounds write. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2016-20042. The attack can only be executed locally. Furthermore, there is an exploit available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in trn Threaded USENET News Reader 3.6-23. It has been declared as critical. This vulnerability affects some unknown processing. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a out-of-bounds write vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-787. The product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

TRN 3.6-23 contains a stack buffer overflow vulnerability that allows local attackers to execute arbitrary code by supplying an oversized argument to the application. Attackers can craft a malicious command-line argument with 156 bytes of padding followed by a return address to overwrite the instruction pointer and execute shellcode with user privileges.

The advisory is available at exploit-db.com. This vulnerability was named CVE-2016-20042 since 03/28/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. Local access is required to approach this attack. Technical details are unknown but a public exploit is available.

It is possible to download the exploit at exploit-db.com. It is declared as proof-of-concept.

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Exploit-DB (39764) and EUVD (EUVD-2016-10839). Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Vendor

Name

Version

CPE 2.3info

CPE 2.2info

CVSSv4info

VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CNA CVSS-B Score: 🔒
CNA CVSS-BT Score: 🔒
CNA Vector: 🔒

CVSSv3info

VulDB Meta Base Score: 6.8
VulDB Meta Temp Score: 6.6

VulDB Base Score: 5.3
VulDB Temp Score: 4.8
VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CNA Base Score: 8.4
CNA Vector (VulnCheck): 🔒

CVSSv2info

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VectorComplexityAuthenticationConfidentialityIntegrityAvailability
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VulDB Base Score: 🔒
VulDB Temp Score: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

Exploitinginfo

Class: Out-of-bounds write
CWE: CWE-787 / CWE-119
CAPEC: 🔒
ATT&CK: 🔒

Physical: Partially
Local: Yes
Remote: No

Availability: 🔒
Access: Public
Status: Proof-of-Concept
Download: 🔒

EPSS Score: 🔒
EPSS Percentile: 🔒

Price Prediction: 🔍
Current Price Estimation: 🔒

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Exploit-DB: 🔒

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Interest: 🔍
Active Actors: 🔍
Active APT Groups: 🔍

Countermeasuresinfo

Recommended: no mitigation known
Status: 🔍

0-Day Time: 🔒

Timelineinfo

03/28/2026 Advisory disclosed
03/28/2026 +0 days CVE reserved
03/28/2026 +0 days VulDB entry created
03/29/2026 +1 days VulDB entry last update

Sourcesinfo

Advisory: 39764
Status: Not defined

CVE: (vuldb.com) CVE-2016-20042 (🔒)
GCVE (CVE): GCVE-0-2016-20042
GCVE (VulDB): GCVE-100-354094
EUVD: 🔒
scip Labs: https://www.scip.ch/en/?labs.20161013

Entryinfo

Created: 03/28/2026 21:54
Updated: 03/29/2026 01:24
Changes: 03/28/2026 21:54 (78), 03/29/2026 01:24 (1)
Complete: 🔍
Cache ID: 216:B0E:103

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