Threats / Adobe / CVE-2016-4171
CVE-2016-4171
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-08-04
Adobe Flash Player vulnerability
Unspecified remote code execution vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player exploited in the wild, enabling attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected systems.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
This vulnerability poses significant risk due to active exploitation in the wild. The remote code execution capability allows attackers to compromise systems running vulnerable Flash Player versions without user interaction beyond viewing malicious content.
CISA KEV Yes · 2022-03-254EPSS 0.20211 (verify live)5CVSS 7.8 (CISA)3CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: total3
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
5 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-25).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.20211 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: Adobe, Flash Player. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Technical Impact: totalCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 2108 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I craft malicious content that exploits the unspecified vulnerability in Flash Player to achieve code execution on target systems.
Business
Organizations face potential data breaches, system compromise, and operational disruption from attacker-controlled endpoints.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I distribute the exploit through compromised websites or watering hole attacks targeting specific user populations.
Business
Enterprise security teams must respond to widespread infections and implement emergency patching across vulnerable client systems.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I establish persistent access and lateral movement capabilities within compromised networks.
Business
Organizations incur costs for incident response, forensic investigation, and remediation of potentially compromised infrastructure.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05