SARA / Free Tools / CVE / CVE-2019-16905

CVE-2019-16905 — OpenSSH 7

OpenSSH 7.7 through 7.9 and 8.x before 8.1, when compiled with an experimental key type, has a pre-authentication integer overflow if a client or server is configured to use a crafted XMSS key. This leads to memory corruption and local code execution because of an error in the XM

CVSS
7.8 HIGH
EPSS
2.23% (top 17.60%)
CWE
—
Published
2019-10-09T20:15:23.503
Last modified
2026-10-14T07:16:48.583
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

01What is this vulnerability?

OpenSSH 7.7 through 7.9 and 8.x before 8.1, when compiled with an experimental key type, has a pre-authentication integer overflow if a client or server is configured to use a crafted XMSS key. This leads to memory corruption and local code execution because of an error in the XMSS key parsing algorithm. NOTE: the XMSS implementation is considered experimental in all released OpenSSH versions…

02Affected products

No structured affected-product list available — see references below for vendor advisories.

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

09References

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