CVE-2010-4237
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 · uneditedMercurial before 1.6.4 fails to verify the Common Name field of SSL certificates which allows remote attackers who acquire a certificate signed by a Certificate Authority to perform a man-in-the-middle attack.
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 · high confidenceMercurial before version 1.6.4 fails to verify the Common Name (CN) field of SSL certificates during HTTPS connections. This allows an attacker who obtains a valid CA-signed certificate to perform a man-in-the-middle attack by impersonating the legitimate server, intercepting and potentially modifying data in transit.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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< 1.6.4CVSS 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
- High
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Determine installed Mercurial versionRun 'hg --version' or 'hg version' to see the installed Mercurial version numberAffected if The version shown is below 1.6.4 (e.g., 1.6.3, 1.6.0, 1.5, etc.)
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Identify HTTPS usage in repositoriesReview your Mercurial configuration (.hgrc files) and repository URLs to identify any configured remote repositories using HTTPS URLs (https://)Affected if You have remote repositories configured with HTTPS URLs while using a Mercurial version below 1.6.4
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Check SSL certificate verification behaviorAttempt an HTTPS clone/pull from one of your configured HTTPS repositories and observe whether certificate CN validation occursAffected if The connection succeeds without proper CN field verification errors or warnings, indicating the vulnerability is present
You are affected if your Mercurial installation is version 1.6.3 or earlier and you use HTTPS URLs to connect to remote repositories, as the missing CN field verification enables man-in-the-middle attacks on those connections.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 data1.6.4
Upgrade Mercurial to version 1.6.4 or later which includes proper SSL certificate CN field verification. As a compensating control, verify that connections use HTTPS and consider implementing certificate pinning or switching to SSH authentication.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2010-4237 — 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 sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2010-4237 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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