CVE-2018-12546

Exp

In Eclipse Mosquitto version 1.0 to 1.5.5 (inclusive) when a client publishes a retained message to a topic, then has its access to that topic revoked, the retained message will still be published to clients that subscribe to that topic in the future. In some applications this may result in clients being able cause effects that would otherwise not be allowed.

Published: 2019-03-27 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-12546 is rated Exploit Available (59.9/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.82%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). 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-2018-12546

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2018-12546

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 0.18% 0.82% +0.64%
2 2026-05-27 0.25% 0.18% -0.07%
3 2025-12-28 — 0.25% —

Full EPSS history (16 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-12546

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N 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:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.8 3.6 [email protected]
4.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:S)
A single authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 8.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2018-12546

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-12546

vendor priority summary link
alpine medium CVE-2018-12546: 1 source package rows (mosquitto); 30 state rows across 10 repos (3.10-main, 3.11-main, 3.12-main, 3.17-main, 3.18-main, 3.19-main, 3.20-main, 3.21-main, 3.22-main, edge-main); fixed 10, open 20. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2018-12546
debian not yet assigned CVE-2018-12546 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (mosquitto), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-12546
ubuntu medium CVE-2018-12546 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (mosquitto), 6 status rows across 6 suites (bionic, cosmic, disco, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 4, not-affected 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-12546

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-12546

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
eclipse mosquitto >= 1.0, <= 1.5.5 cpe:2.3:a:eclipse:mosquitto:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-12546

URL Tags
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=543127 Exploit Issue Tracking Vendor Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence