CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2019-16777 — Versions of the npm CLI prior to 6.13.4 are vulnerable to an Arbitrary File Overwrite

High CVSS 7.7

Versions of the npm CLI prior to 6.13.4 are vulnerable to an Arbitrary File Overwrite. It fails to prevent existing globally-installed binaries to be overwritten by other package installations. For example, if a package was installed globally and created a serve binary, any subsequent installs of packages that also create a serve binary would overwrite the previous serve binary. This behavior is still allowed in local installations and also through install scripts. This vulnerability bypasses a user using the --ignore-scripts install option.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.7 (3.1)
Published
2019-12-13
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
javascript/npm
Weaknesses
CWE-22, CWE-269

Affected products

  • npmjs / npm
  • opensuse / leap / 15.1
  • oracle / graalvm / 19.3.0.2
  • fedoraproject / fedora / 31
  • redhat / enterprise_linux / 8.0
  • redhat / enterprise_linux_eus / 8.1

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

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

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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