CVE-2018-18070
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 · uneditedAn issue was discovered in Daimler Mercedes-Benz COMAND 17/13.0 50.12 on Mercedes-Benz C-Class 2018 vehicles. Defining or receiving a specific navigation route might cause the system to freeze and reboot after a few transmissions. When the system next starts, it tries to re-calculate the route, which will cause a boot loop. (Under certain circumstances, it is possible to quickly overwrite the malicious route to regain the stability of the system.)
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 · moderate confidenceA specific navigation route causes the Mercedes-Benz COMAND infotainment system (version 17/13.0 50.12 on C-Class 2018) to freeze and reboot. Upon restart, the system attempts to recalculate the malicious route, triggering a persistent boot loop that renders the head unit unusable.
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= 17\/13.0_50.12CVSS 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
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
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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Identify COMAND system versionAccess the COMAND infotainment system settings and navigate to the 'System Information' or 'About' menu to view the firmware version numberAffected if The displayed version equals 17/13.0_50.12 exactly
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Confirm navigation module is in useCheck if the navigation app has been recently launched or if route guidance was active prior to any observed issuesAffected if Navigation was in use or a route was entered when the freeze occurred
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Observe boot behaviorPower on the vehicle and observe whether the head unit completes startup or enters a repeated cycle of booting, freezing, and automatically restartingAffected if The system enters a persistent boot loop with repeated freezing and rebooting
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Verify route recalculation attemptNote whether the system attempts to calculate or recalculate a route immediately upon each boot before crashingAffected if The system tries to recalculate a route on startup and then crashes, indicating the malicious route is still stored
A user is affected if their COMAND firmware is exactly version 17/13.0_50.12 and they have encountered a navigation route that triggers a persistent boot loop.
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 dataThe primary mitigation is a manufacturer-issued firmware update from Mercedes-Benz to handle malformed route data gracefully. As a workaround, quickly overwriting the malicious route before the system fully boots can break the loop.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing8.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-18070 — 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-2018-18070 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
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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