CVE-2019-20384

Exp

Gentoo Portage through 2.3.84 allows local users to place a Trojan horse plugin in the /usr/lib64/nagios/plugins directory by leveraging access to the nagios user account, because this directory is writable in between a call to emake and a call to fowners.

Published: 2020-01-20 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2019-20384 is rated Exploit Available (50/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.27%). 2 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-2019-20384

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2019-20384

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 0.09% 0.27% +0.18%
2 2025-11-21 0.04% 0.09% +0.05%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.04% —

Full EPSS history (9 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2019-20384

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:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N 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: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.
 1.8 3.6 [email protected]
2.1 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
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:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 3.9 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2019-20384

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2019-20384

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gentoo portage <= 2.3.84 cpe:2.3:a:gentoo:portage:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2019-20384

URL Tags
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2020/01/21/1 Exploit Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://bugs.gentoo.org/692492 Exploit Issue Tracking Vendor Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence