Airport Base Station FirmwareOperating system · Apple

CVE-2019-7291

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2020-10-27
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 7.8.1 or later.
See remediation →
71/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable 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
A denial of service issue was addressed with improved memory handling. This issue is fixed in AirPort Base Station Firmware Update 7.8.1, AirPort Base Station Firmware Update 7.9.1. An attacker in a privileged position may be able to perform a denial of service 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 · moderate confidence

A denial of service vulnerability in Apple AirPort Base Station Firmware allows an attacker with privileged network position to cause device crash or unavailability via improper memory handling.

MitigationUpdate AirPort Base Station Firmware to version 7.8.1 or 7.9.1 (or later) to remediate this vulnerability.

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
Airport Base Station FirmwareOperating system
Affected:< 7.8.1

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

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/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. Identify the device model
    Locate the AirPort Base Station physical device or access the device management interface to confirm the model number matches Apple AirPort Base Station (any variant including Extreme, Express, or Time Capsule)
    Affected if The device is not an Apple AirPort Base Station
  2. Access firmware version information
    Open Apple AirPort Utility (available on macOS or as iOS app), select the AirPort Base Station device, and navigate to the version information displayed in the device status or summary view
    Affected if Unable to retrieve version information from the device
  3. Compare installed version to affected range
    Note the displayed firmware version number and compare it numerically to version 7.8.1. For example, versions 7.7.9, 7.6.7, or any version starting with 7.x where the full version number is less than 7.8.1 are in the affected range
    Affected if Installed firmware version is 7.8.0 or lower, or any version number less than 7.8.1
  4. Confirm the device is reachable on the network
    Verify the AirPort Base Station is powered on and accessible on the network by pinging its IP address or confirming it appears in AirPort Utility
    Affected if The device is offline or unreachable, but this does not change vulnerability status if firmware version is below 7.8.1

The environment is affected if an Apple AirPort Base Station is installed with firmware version 7.8.0 or any earlier version (any 7.x version below 7.8.1), as these versions contain the improper memory handling flaw that allows remote denial of service.

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 7.8.1 or later
Fixed in 7.8.1
Interim mitigation

Update AirPort Base Station Firmware to version 7.8.1 or 7.9.1 (or later) to remediate this vulnerability.

Fix this in Airport Base Station Firmware Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
7.0 hours of engineering $1,240
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,984.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2019-7291 — 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-2019-7291 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