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Fencer Vulns
high 8.8

CVE-2018-10900 json

Network Manager VPNC plugin (aka networkmanager-vpnc) before version 1.2.6 is vulnerable to a privilege escalation attack.

published 2018-07-26 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2018-2957

cvss
8.8
version 3.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.0%
EPSS 4.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 90%
public exploits
2
Metasploit, Exploit-DB

Summary

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.

Patch / fix

  • gnome network_manager_vpnc 1.2.6
  • network-manager-vpnc Debian 13, Debian 12 1.2.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2018-10900

  • network-manager-vpnc Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 0.9.8.6-1ubuntu2.1
  • network-manager-vpnc Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 1.1.93-1ubuntu0.1
  • network-manager-vpnc Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 1.2.4-6ubuntu0.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2018-10900

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

  • NetworkManager-vpnc SLED 12 SP3, SLE Workstation Extension 12 SP3 1.0.8-8.4.2

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2018:2297-1

  • networkmanager-vpnc Arch Linux 1.2.6-1

arch linux advisories AVG-739

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-2018-10900 updated cvss 8.8

NetworkManager-vpnc: privilege escalation allows to execute arbitrary commands as root

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (Metasploit exploit/linux/local/network_manager_vpnc_username_priv_esc)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

3.96% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 90% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.0 8.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected products

  • [UNKNOWN] networkmanager-vpnc

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command

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.