CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2019-12749 — Freedesktop Dbus security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.1

dbus before 1.10.28, 1.12.x before 1.12.16, and 1.13.x before 1.13.12, as used in DBusServer in Canonical Upstart in Ubuntu 14.04 (and in some, less common, uses of dbus-daemon), allows cookie spoofing because of symlink mishandling in the reference implementation of DBUS_COOKIE_SHA1 in the libdbus library. (This only affects the DBUS_COOKIE_SHA1 authentication mechanism.) A malicious client with write access to its own home directory could manipulate a ~/.dbus-keyrings symlink to cause a DBusServer with a different uid to read and write in unintended locations. In the worst case, this could result in the DBusServer reusing a cookie that is known to the malicious client, and treating that cookie as evidence that a subsequent client connection came from an attacker-chosen uid, allowing authentication bypass.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.1 (3.1)
Published
2019-06-11
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-59

Affected products

  • freedesktop / dbus
  • canonical / ubuntu_linux / 16.04
  • canonical / ubuntu_linux / 18.04
  • canonical / ubuntu_linux / 18.10
  • canonical / ubuntu_linux / 19.04

Showing 5 representative product identities from 7 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Path traversal, unsafe upload, and file handling

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace untrusted filenames, archive entries, URLs, and path segments into read, write, include, extraction, and upload operations.
  • Identify filesystem roots, mount permissions, symbolic-link behavior, archive handling, and whether uploaded content is web-accessible or executable.
  • Review canonicalization and containment checks across supported operating systems and storage backends.

Remediate safely

  • Generate server-side storage identifiers and resolve paths beneath a fixed root using filesystem-aware containment checks.
  • Reject absolute, parent-relative, alternate-separator, device, link, and archive entries that escape the intended root.
  • Store uploads outside executable or served paths, validate type and size, and use private atomic temporary files.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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