CVE-2019-17042
9.8 · CRITICALOverview
CVE-2019-17042 is a critical-severity vulnerability affecting rsyslog rsyslog. It was published on October 7, 2019 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.8 (CRITICAL).
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.8, rated CRITICAL. It can be exploited remotely over the network. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
Technical Description
An issue was discovered in Rsyslog v8.1908.0. contrib/pmcisconames/pmcisconames.c has a heap overflow in the parser for Cisco log messages. The parser tries to locate a log message delimiter (in this case, a space or a colon), but fails to account for strings that do not satisfy this constraint. If the string does not match, then the variable lenMsg will reach the value zero and will skip the sanity check that detects invalid log messages. The message will then be considered valid, and the parser will eat up the nonexistent colon delimiter. In doing so, it will decrement lenMsg, a signed integer, whose value was zero and now becomes minus one. The following step in the parser is to shift left the contents of the message. To do this, it will call memmove with the right pointers to the target and destination strings, but the lenMsg will now be interpreted as a huge value, causing a heap overflow.
Remediation
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from rsyslog. Update rsyslog to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
Affected Products
| Vendor | Product | Versions | Status |
|---|
References
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2019-17042?
CVE-2019-17042 is a critical-severity vulnerability affecting rsyslog rsyslog. It was published on October 7, 2019 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.8 (CRITICAL).
How severe is CVE-2019-17042?
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.8, rated CRITICAL. It can be exploited remotely over the network. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
How do I fix or remediate CVE-2019-17042?
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from rsyslog. Update rsyslog to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
How can CyberStrike help with CVE-2019-17042?
CyberStrike's AI-powered security agents can automatically detect CVE-2019-17042 across your infrastructure using autonomous pentesting, DAST scanning, and HackBrowser. The platform continuously monitors for known vulnerabilities and provides actionable remediation guidance prioritized by real-world exploitability.
How CyberStrike Helps
AI agents map your attack surface to find vulnerabilities like this one.
Automated penetration testing that runs continuously, not just quarterly.
AI-driven PR review catches vulnerable dependencies before they ship.
Browser-based exploitation validates findings with real proof-of-concept.
Related CRITICAL CVEs from 2019
View all →FasterXML jackson-databind 2.x before 2.9.7 might allow remote attackers to conduct server-side requ
Zoho ManageEngine ADSelfService Plus 5.x before build 5703 has SSRF.
Juniper ATP ships with hard coded credentials in the Web Collector instance which gives an attacker
Juniper ATP ships with hard coded credentials in the Cyphort Core instance which gives an attacker t
MailEnable before 8.60 allows XXE via an XML document in the request.aspx Options parameter.
A reliance on a static, hard-coded credential in the design of the cloud-based storage system of Pra
An earlier fix for an Inter-process Communication (IPC) vulnerability, CVE-2011-3079, added authenti
An exploitable heap overflow vulnerability exists in the WkbProgramLow function of WibuKey Network s
A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved validation. This issue is fixed in iOS 12.1.3,
The REST API component of TIBCO Software Inc.'s TIBCO JasperReports Server, TIBCO JasperReports Serv
Kibana versions before 5.6.15 and 6.6.1 contain an arbitrary code execution flaw in the Timelion vis
An SSRF vulnerability was found in an API from Ctrip Apollo through 1.4.0-SNAPSHOT. An attacker may