CVE-2019-16159

BIRD Internet Routing Daemon 1.6.x through 1.6.7 and 2.x through 2.0.5 has a stack-based buffer overflow. The BGP daemon's support for RFC 8203 administrative shutdown communication messages included an incorrect logical expression when checking the validity of an input message. Sending a shutdown communication with a sufficient message length causes a four-byte overflow to occur while processing the message, where two of the overflow bytes are attacker-controlled and two are fixed.

Published: 2019-09-09 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2019-16159 is rated Moderate Risk (61/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 5.29%, 90th percentile). EPSS ranks this CVE among the most likely to be exploited in the near term. High exploitation likelihood—assess exposure and prioritize remediation.

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-2019-16159

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 2026-06-04 5.91% 5.29% -0.62%
2 2026-05-10 5.29% 5.91% +0.62%
3 2025-11-21 — 5.29% —

Full EPSS history (21 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2019-16159

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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: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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]
5.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P 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:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 10.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2019-16159

OS Trackers for CVE-2019-16159

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2019-16159 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 2 source packages (bird, bird2), 7 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 7. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2019-16159
ubuntu medium CVE-2019-16159 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (bird), 7 status rows across 7 suites (bionic, disco, eoan, focal, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 3, ignored 2, DNE 1, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2019-16159

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2019-16159

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
nic bird >= 1.6.0, <= 1.6.7 cpe:2.3:a:nic:bird:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
nic bird >= 2.0.0, <= 2.0.5 cpe:2.3:a:nic:bird:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
opensuse backports_sle 15.0 cpe:2.3:a:opensuse:backports_sle:15.0:sp1:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 29 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:29:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 30 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:30:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2019-16159

URL Tags
http://bird.network.cz Vendor Advisory
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-09/msg00063.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-09/msg00065.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://trubka.network.cz/pipermail/bird-users/2019-September/013718.html Vendor Advisory
http://trubka.network.cz/pipermail/bird-users/2019-September/013720.html Vendor Advisory
http://trubka.network.cz/pipermail/bird-users/2019-September/013722.html Vendor Advisory
https://gitlab.labs.nic.cz/labs/bird/commit/1657c41c96b3c07d9265b07dd4912033ead4124b Patch Third Party Advisory
https://gitlab.labs.nic.cz/labs/bird/commit/8388f5a7e14108a1458fea35bfbb5a453e2c563c Patch Third Party Advisory
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/4F23NNAPXX65MGJQBPPTVGRV3T4XCKBV/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/MCVNQJBZYGGNAJNGOFEBE3IAJME2QIZB/
https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Sep/34 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://www.debian.org/security/2019/dsa-4528 Third Party Advisory
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