CVE-2020-19189

Exp

Buffer Overflow vulnerability in postprocess_terminfo function in tinfo/parse_entry.c:997 in ncurses 6.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via crafted command.

Published: 2023-08-22 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2020-19189 is rated High Exploit Risk (69.6/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.95%). 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-2020-19189

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-19189

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 2026-04-12 2.55% 1.95% -0.60%
2 2026-04-02 1.95% 2.55% +0.60%
3 2026-01-17 — 1.95% —

Full EPSS history (25 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-19189

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:N/UI:R/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: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.
 2.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2020-19189

OS Trackers for CVE-2020-19189

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2020-19189 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (ncurses), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2020-19189
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-19189
suse medium CVE-2020-19189 severity moderate: SUSE including 14 source package names (libncurses5, libncurses5-32bit, …), 376 product×package rows across 43 product lines (SUSE CaaS Platform 4.0, SUSE Enterprise Storage 7, … (43 product lines)): Known Not Affected 376. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-19189/
ubuntu medium CVE-2020-19189 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (ncurses), 8 status rows across 8 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, lunar, mantic, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 4, released 4. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2020-19189

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-19189

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gnu ncurses 6.1 cpe:2.3:a:gnu:ncurses:6.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
netapp active_iq_unified_manager — cpe:2.3:a:netapp:active_iq_unified_manager:-:*:*:*:*:vsphere:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-19189

cvelogic Threat Intelligence