CVE-2018-12520

Exp

An issue was discovered in ntopng 3.4 before 3.4.180617. The PRNG involved in the generation of session IDs is not seeded at program startup. This results in deterministic session IDs being allocated for active user sessions. An attacker with foreknowledge of the operating system and standard library in use by the host running the service and the username of the user whose session they're targeting can abuse the deterministic random number generation in order to hijack the user's session, thus escalating their access.

Published: 2018-07-05 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2018-12520 is rated High Exploit Risk (85.6/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 10.67%, 95th percentile). Core evidence: 4 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +4.85% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2018-12520

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
44973 exploit_db edb 2018-07-03 Exploit-DB ↗
nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗
nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗
nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2018-12520

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 5.83% 10.67% +4.85%
2 2026-01-27 7.34% 5.83% -1.51%
3 2026-01-19 7.34%

Full EPSS history (27 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-12520

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
8.1 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
2.2 5.9 [email protected]
6.8 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
8.6 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2018-12520

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-12520

vendor priority summary link
ubuntu high CVE-2018-12520 high priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (ntopng), 17 status rows across 17 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 9, ignored 3, released 3, DNE 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-12520

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-12520

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
ntop ntopng >= 3.4, < 3.4.180617 cpe:2.3:a:ntop:ntopng:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-12520

cvelogic Threat Intelligence