CVE-2018-10900

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 3.9% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2018-07-26 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-78

Description

Network Manager VPNC plugin (aka networkmanager-vpnc) before version 1.2.6 is vulnerable to a privilege escalation attack. A new line character can be used to inject a Password helper parameter into the configuration data passed to VPNC, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary commands as root.

Affected products

Debian Linux: 8.0, 9.0
GNOME Network Manager Vpnc: before 1.2.6 — fixed in 1.2.6

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: GNOME Network Manager Vpnc 1.2.6. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1101147
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2018-10900
https://download.gnome.org/sources/NetworkManager-vpnc/1.2/NetworkManager-vpnc-1.2.6.news
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/NetworkManager-vpnc/commit/07ac18a32b4
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/07/msg00048.html
https://pulsesecurity.co.nz/advisories/NM-VPNC-Privesc
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201808-03
https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4253
https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/45313/
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1101147
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2018-10900
https://download.gnome.org/sources/NetworkManager-vpnc/1.2/NetworkManager-vpnc-1.2.6.news

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