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Fencer Vulns
high 7.0

CVE-2018-14879 json

The command-line argument parser in tcpdump before 4.9.3 has a buffer overflow in tcpdump.c:get_next_file().

published 2019-10-03 7 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2018-6761

cvss
7.0
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.7%
EPSS 4.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 91%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The command-line argument parser in tcpdump before 4.9.3 has a buffer overflow in tcpdump.c:get_next_file().

Patch / fix

  • tcpdump tcpdump 4.9.3
  • apple mac_os_x 10.15.2
  • tcpdump Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.9.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2018-14879

  • tcpdump Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.9.3-0ubuntu0.16.04.1
  • tcpdump Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.9.3-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
  • tcpdump Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 4.9.3-0ubuntu0.14.04.1+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2018-14879

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • tcpdump RHEL 8 14:4.9.3-1.el8

red hat advisories RHSA-2020:4760

  • tcpdump SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.9.2-14.17.1
  • tcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP1, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 4.9.2-3.9.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2020:3360-1SUSE-SU-2019:2674-1

  • tcpdump openSUSE Tumbleweed 4.99.1-1.2
  • tcpdump openSUSE Leap 15.1 4.9.2-lp151.4.6.1
  • tcpdump openSUSE Leap 15.0 4.9.2-lp150.10.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11425-1openSUSE-SU-2019:2348-1openSUSE-SU-2019:2344-1

  • tcpdump Rocky Linux 8 4:4.9.3-1.el8

rocky linux advisories RLSA-2020:4760

  • tcpdump Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +13 more 4.9.3-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2018-14879

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2018-14879 updated cvss 7.0

tcpdump: Out of bounds read/write in in get_next_file() in tcpdump.c

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 tcpdump Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 tcpdump
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 tcpdump
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 8) tcpdump 4.9.3-1.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:4760

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
11 mo ago

Exploit prediction

4.65% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 91% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 7.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA 3.1 7.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 5.1 AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-120 Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.