What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2019-15949: Nagios XI Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: yes — in CISA KEV since 2021-11-03
• EPSS: 77.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2019-09-05 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-78

Description

Nagios XI before 5.6.6 allows remote command execution as root. The exploit requires access to the server as the nagios user, or access as the admin user via the web interface. The getprofile.sh script, invoked by downloading a system profile (profile.php?cmd=download), is executed as root via a passwordless sudo entry; the script executes check_plugin, which is owned by the nagios user. A user logged into Nagios XI with permissions to modify plugins, or the nagios user on the server, can modify the check_plugin executable and insert malicious commands to execute as root.

Affected products

• Nagios XI: before 5.6.6 — fixed in 5.6.6

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Nagios XI 5.6.6. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/156676/Nagios-XI-Authenticated-Remote-Command-Execution.html
• http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/162158/Nagios-XI-getprofile.sh-Remote-Command-Execution.html
• https://github.com/jakgibb/nagiosxi-root-rce-exploit
• http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/156676/Nagios-XI-Authenticated-Remote-Command-Execution.html
• http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/162158/Nagios-XI-getprofile.sh-Remote-Command-Execution.html
• https://github.com/jakgibb/nagiosxi-root-rce-exploit
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2019-15949

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