P20 FirmwareOperating system · Huawei

CVE-2018-7987

MEDIUM · 5.9 CVSS v3.0 Published 2018-12-04
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 8.1.0.171 or later.
See remediation →
68/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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
There is an out-of-bounds write vulnerability on Huawei P20 smartphones with versions before 8.1.0.171(C00). The software does not handle the response message properly when the user doing certain inquiry operation, an attacker could send crafted message to the device, successful exploit could cause a denial of service condition.

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 confidence

Out-of-bounds write vulnerability in Huawei P20 smartphones versions before 8.1.0.171(C00). The flaw exists in the message handling logic for certain inquiry operations, where the device fails to properly validate incoming message data before processing, allowing an attacker to send crafted messages that trigger memory corruption and cause denial of service.

MitigationApply vendor firmware update 8.1.0.171(C00) or later to affected Huawei P20 devices. Organizations should inventory affected devices and push the update via mobile device management platforms.

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
P20 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:< 8.1.0.171\(c00\)

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
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Confirm device model is Huawei P20
    Check the device settings: go to Settings > About Phone > Model Number, or run 'getprop ro.product.name' via ADB shell
    Affected if Model number does not contain 'Huawei P20' or 'Huawei CLT-LXX' variants (any P20 submodel)
  2. Check firmware build number
    Go to Settings > About Phone > Build Number, or run 'getprop ro.build.display.id' via ADB shell
    Affected if Build number is lower than 8.1.0.171(C00) or cannot be determined to be 8.1.0.171(C00) or higher
  3. Verify messaging service is active
    Check if the Messages app is installed and functional, or confirm phone can receive SMS/MMS: run 'getprop ro.carrier' via ADB shell to confirm carrier provisioning
    Affected if Messaging capability is present (this is the attack surface - virtually all P20 devices have this enabled by default)
  4. Confirm software update status
    Go to Settings > System > System Update, or check for pending updates via 'pm list packages -u' and compare against Huawei update servers
    Affected if Device has not received firmware update 8.1.0.171(C00) or later, or update status cannot be verified

User is affected if they are using a Huawei P20 device with firmware version below 8.1.0.171(C00) and messaging functionality is enabled (default state).

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 8.1.0.171 or later
Fixed in 8.1.0.171
Interim mitigation

Apply vendor firmware update 8.1.0.171(C00) or later to affected Huawei P20 devices. Organizations should inventory affected devices and push the update via mobile device management platforms.

Fix this in P20 Firmware Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation1.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
6.0 hours of engineering $1,060
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-7987 — 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-2018-7987 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