CVE-2019-16777

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LowLow ImpactWhat does this mean?

4.8CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Description

Additional information

Affected Packages

CVSS Score Details

Weakness (CWE)

FAQ

Description

The CVE Program describes this issue as:

Versions of the npm CLI prior to 6.13.4 are vulnerable to an Arbitrary File Overwrite. It fails to prevent existing globally-installed binaries to be overwritten by other package installations. For example, if a package was installed globally and created a serve binary, any subsequent installs of packages that also create a serve binary would overwrite the previous serve binary. This behavior is still allowed in local installations and also through install scripts. This vulnerability bypasses a user using the --ignore-scripts install option.

Additional information

Bugzilla 1788301: npm: Global node_modules Binary Overwrite
CWE-20: Improper Input Validation
FAQ: Frequently asked questions about CVE-2019-16777

External references

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-16777

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-16777

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
	Red Hat	NVD
CVSS v3 Base Score	4.8	6.5
Attack Vector	Network	Network
Attack Complexity	High	Low
Privileges Required	Low	Low
User Interaction	Required	None
Scope	Unchanged	Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact	None	None
Integrity Impact	High	High
Availability Impact	None	None

CVSS v3 Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Red Hat CVSS v3 Score Explanation

The attacker needs to trick a victim into installing an untrusted, specially crafted, NPM package. In a protected environment, only packages that are trusted should be installed, since they are likely to get executed. Therefore the severity is considered Low.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

For open source software shipped by multiple vendors, the CVSS base scores may vary for each vendor's version depending on the version they ship, how they ship it, the platform, and even how the software is compiled. This makes scoring of vulnerabilities difficult for third-party vulnerability databases such as NVD that only provide a single CVSS base score for each vulnerability. Red Hat scores reflect how a vulnerability affects our products specifically.

For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/762393.

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?

"Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.
The term "Affected" means that our Analysis team has determined that this product, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 or OpenShift Container Platform 4, is affected by this vulnerability and a fix may be released to address this issue in the near future. This includes all minor releases of this product unless noted otherwise in the Statement text.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

A "will not fix" status means that a fix for an affected product version is not planned or not possible due to complexity, which may create additional risk.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:

Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).
Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
Open a support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

A deferred status means that a fix for an affected product version is not guaranteed due to higher-priority development work.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:

Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
Open a support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on their complexity or limited lifecycle support. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.

What is a mitigation?

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

In order to maintain code stability and compatibility, Red Hat usually does not rebase packages to entirely new versions. Instead, we backport fixes and new features to an older version of the package we distribute. This can result in some security scanners that only consider the package version to report the package as vulnerable. To avoid this, we suggest that you use an approved vulnerability scanner from our Red Hat Vulnerability Scanner Certification program.

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CVE-2019-16777

Description

Additional information

External references

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Important note

CVSS v3 Vector

Red Hat CVSS v3 Score Explanation

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

What is a mitigation?

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

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