Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2010-1321

MEDIUM · 6.8 CVSS v2.0 Published 2010-05-19
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 1.8.2 or later.
See remediation →
74/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
The kg_accept_krb5 function in krb5/accept_sec_context.c in the GSS-API library in MIT Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) through 1.7.1 and 1.8 before 1.8.2, as used in kadmind and other applications, does not properly check for invalid GSS-API tokens, which allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and daemon crash) via an AP-REQ message in which the authenticator's checksum field is missing.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-476

The code follows a pointer that is null, crashing the process. An attacker who can reliably trigger it turns the crash into a denial of service. The fix is checking for null before use and handling the failure path gracefully.

General guidance for the null pointer dereference class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 5.0= 6.0
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 6.06= 8.04= 9.04= 9.10= 10.04
FedoraOperating system
Affected:= 11= 12= 13
Kerberos 5Application
Affected:<= 1.7.1>= 1.8, < 1.8.2
Database ServerDatabase / datastore
Affected:all versions
OpensuseOperating system
Affected:= 11.0= 11.1= 11.2= 11.3
Linux Enterprise ServerOperating system
Affected:= 10= 11

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Authentication
Single
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Complete

AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:C

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to 1.8.2 or later
Fixed in 1.8.2
Vendor patch web.mit.edu →
We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $2,850. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2010-1321 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2010-1321 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data