CVE-2019-12953

Dropbear 2011.54 through 2018.76 has an inconsistent failure delay that may lead to revealing valid usernames, a different issue than CVE-2018-15599.

Published: 2020-12-30 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2019-12953 is rated Low Risk (39.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.29%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2019-12953

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 2025-11-24 0.50% 0.29% -0.21%
2 2025-11-21 0.23% 0.50% +0.26%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.23% —

Full EPSS history (14 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2019-12953

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/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: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:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 1.4 [email protected]
5.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/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:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 10.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2019-12953

OS Trackers for CVE-2019-12953

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2019-12953 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (dropbear), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2019-12953
ubuntu medium CVE-2019-12953 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (dropbear), 16 status rows across 16 suites (bionic, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 12, needs-triage 2, DNE 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2019-12953

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2019-12953

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
dropbear_ssh_project dropbear_ssh >= 2011.54, <= 2018.76 cpe:2.3:a:dropbear_ssh_project:dropbear_ssh:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2019-12953

URL Tags
https://matt.ucc.asn.au/dropbear/CHANGES Release Notes Third Party Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence