dbcve.org
Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2019-12900

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2019-06-19
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 3.7.13 / 3.8.13 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges 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
BZ2_decompress in decompress.c in bzip2 through 1.0.6 has an out-of-bounds write when there are many selectors.

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-787

The program writes past the bounds of a buffer, overwriting adjacent memory an attacker can turn to their advantage. Crafted input can overwrite control data and redirect execution. Remediation is validating every index and length before a write, plus modern memory-safety mitigations.

General guidance for the out-of-bounds write 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:= 8.0
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 12.04= 14.04= 16.04= 18.04= 19.04
FreeBSDOperating system
Affected:= 11.2= 11.3= 12.0
PythonApplication
Affected:>= 3.7.0, < 3.7.13>= 3.8.0, < 3.8.13>= 3.9.0, < 3.9.11>= 3.10.0, < 3.10.3
Bzip2Application
Affected:<= 1.0.6
LeapOperating system
Affected:= 15.0= 15.1

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

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 3.7.13 / 3.8.13 / 3.9.11 or later
Fixed in 3.7.133.8.133.9.11
Vendor patch gitlab.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

bzip2 >= 1.0.7; or Python: 3.7.13+, 3.8.13+, 3.9.11+, or 3.10.3+

  1. Identify whether the vulnerable bzip2 library is used directly or indirectly (e.g., through Python's bundled bzip2)
  2. For systems with direct bzip2 installation: update the bzip2 package via the system's package manager (e.g., apt-get update && apt-get install bzip2 on Debian/Ubuntu, yum update bzip2 on RHEL/Fedora, or pkg update && pkg upgrade bzip2 on FreeBSD)
  3. For Python installations: upgrade Python to a patched version: Python 3.7.13 or later, 3.8.13 or later, 3.9.11 or later, or 3.10.3 or later
  4. Verify the installed version matches a fixed release by checking: bzip2 --version (should be >= 1.0.7) or python3 --version (should meet version requirements above)
  5. Restart any services or applications that use the bzip2 library to ensure the patched version is loaded
Caveat Upgrading bzip2 or Python is generally low-risk; however, some legacy systems or applications may have dependencies on specific library behaviors - test in a non-production environment first

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $3,550. Get the upgrade done

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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-2019-12900 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
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