FedoraOperating system · Fedoraproject

CVE-2019-18928

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2019-11-15
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2.5.14 / 3.0.12 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
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
Cyrus IMAP 2.5.x before 2.5.14 and 3.x before 3.0.12 allows privilege escalation because an HTTP request may be interpreted in the authentication context of an unrelated previous request that arrived over the same connection.

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

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

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
FedoraOperating system
Affected:= 30= 31
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 9.0
ImapApplication
Affected:>= 2.5.0, < 2.5.14>= 3.0.0, < 3.0.12

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 2.5.14 / 3.0.12 or later
Fixed in 2.5.143.0.12
Vendor patch www.cyrusimap.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

Cyrus IMAP 2.5.14 (for 2.5.x branch) or Cyrus IMAP 3.0.12 (for 3.x branch)

  1. Identify currently installed Cyrus IMAP version using package manager (e.g., `rpm -q cyrus-imapd` or `dpkg -l cyrus-imapd`)
  2. Backup current configuration and mail data
  3. For Fedora systems: Run `sudo dnf update cyrus-imapd` to upgrade to the patched version
  4. For Debian systems: Run `sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install cyrus-imapd` to install the patched version
  5. Verify the upgrade was successful by checking the installed version matches 2.5.14 or 3.0.12
  6. Restart the Cyrus IMAP service using `sudo systemctl restart cyrus` or equivalent
  7. Verify the service is running properly and test IMAP functionality

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 $2,300. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

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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-2019-18928 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