CVE-2019-18849

Exp

In tnef before 1.4.18, an attacker may be able to write to the victim's .ssh/authorized_keys file via an e-mail message with a crafted winmail.dat application/ms-tnef attachment, because of a heap-based buffer over-read involving strdup.

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

CVE-2019-18849 is rated High Exploit Risk (62.6/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.77%). 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-2019-18849

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2019-18849

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 2026-05-29 1.02% 0.77% -0.25%
2 2026-05-26 0.77% 1.02% +0.25%
3 2026-05-24 — 0.77% —

Full EPSS history (22 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2019-18849

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
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:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
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.
 1.8 3.6 [email protected]
4.3 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/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:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
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.
 8.6 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2019-18849

OS Trackers for CVE-2019-18849

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2019-18849 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (tnef), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2019-18849
ubuntu medium CVE-2019-18849 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (tnef), 18 status rows across 18 suites (bionic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 12, ignored 2, DNE 1, needed 1, needs-triage 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2019-18849

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2019-18849

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
tnef_project tnef < 1.4.18 cpe:2.3:a:tnef_project:tnef:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 30 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:30:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 31 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:31:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
canonical ubuntu_linux 16.04 cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:*:*:*:esm:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 8.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2019-18849

cvelogic Threat Intelligence