CVE-2017-5217

Summary

CVE	CVE-2017-5217
State	PUBLISHED
Assigner	mitre
Source Priority	CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published	2017-01-09 08:59:00 UTC
Updated	2026-05-06 22:30:45 UTC
Description	Installing a zero-permission Android application on certain Samsung Android devices with KK(4.4), L(5.0/5.1), and M(6.0) software can continually crash the system_server process in the Android OS. The zero-permission app will create an active install session for a separate app that it has embedded within it. The active install session of the embedded app is performed using the android.content.pm.PackageInstaller class and its nested classes in the Android API. The active install session will write the embedded APK file to the /data/app directory, but the app will not be installed since third-party applications cannot programmatically install apps. Samsung has modified AOSP in order to accelerate the parsing of APKs by introducing the com.android.server.pm.PackagePrefetcher class and its nested classes. These classes will parse the APKs present in the /data/app directory and other directories, even if the app is not actually installed. The embedded APK that was written to the /data/app directory via the active install session has a very large but valid AndroidManifest.xml file. Specifically, the AndroidManifest.xml file contains a very large string value for the name of a permission-tree that it declares. When system_server tries to parse the APK file of the embedded app from the active install session, it will crash due to an uncaught error (i.e., java.lang.OutOfMemoryError) or an uncaught exception (i.e., std::bad_alloc) because of memory constraints. The Samsung Android device will encounter a soft reboot due to a system_server crash, and this action will keep repeating since parsing the APKs in the /data/app directory as performed by the system_server process is part of the normal boot process. The Samsung ID is SVE-2016-6917.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.0 5.5 MEDIUM from [email protected]

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS: 0.001480000 probability, percentile 0.348130000 (date 2026-05-11)

Problem Types: CWE-20 | CWE-119 | n/a

Version	Source	Type	Score	Severity	Vector
3.0	[email protected]	Primary	5.5	MEDIUM	`CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`
2.0	[email protected]	Primary	7.1		`AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C`

CVSS v3.0 Breakdown

Attack Vector

Local

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

None

User Interaction

Required

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

None

Integrity

None

Availability

High

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS v2.0 Breakdown

Access Vector

Network

Access Complexity

Medium

Authentication

None

Confidentiality

None

Integrity

None

Availability

Complete

AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

NVD Known Affected Configurations (CPE 2.3)

Type	Vendor	Product	Version	Update	Edition	Language
Operating System	Samsung	Samsung Mobile	4.4	All	All	All
Operating System	Samsung	Samsung Mobile	5.0	All	All	All
Operating System	Samsung	Samsung Mobile	5.1	All	All	All
Operating System	Samsung	Samsung Mobile	6.0	All	All	All

Vendor Declared Affected Products

Source	Vendor	Product	Version	Platforms
CNA	Na	N/a	affected n/a	Not specified

References

Reference	Source	Link	Tags
Error Message \| SAMSUNG Mobile Security	af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108	security.samsungmobile.com	Vendor Advisory
Multiple Samsung Android Mobile Phones CVE-2017-5217 Denial of Service Vulnerability	af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108	www.securityfocus.com
CVE Program record	CVE.ORG	www.cve.org	canonical
NVD vulnerability detail	NVD	nvd.nist.gov	canonical, analysis

No vendor comments have been submitted for this CVE.

There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.