NVD / CVE Program· CNA mitre

CVE-2019-12098: In the client side of Heimdal before 7.6.0, failure to verify anonymous PKINIT PA-PKINIT-KX key exchange permits a man-in-the-middle attack.

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 30/100)

The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 1.9% (FIRST EPSS); higher than 80.3% of all records.
Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it. No account or password is required. No user action is required. Special conditions such as timing or configuration are required.
Fixed version: heimdal (Alpine:v3.10) 7.5.0-r5; heimdal (Alpine:v3.7) 7.4.0-r4; heimdal (Alpine:v3.8) 7.5.0-r3.

Low priority for now. Upgrade to heimdal (Alpine:v3.10) 7.5.0-r5; heimdal (Alpine:v3.7) 7.4.0-r4; heimdal (Alpine:v3.8) 7.5.0-r3 or later.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

In the client side of Heimdal before 7.6.0, failure to verify anonymous PKINIT PA-PKINIT-KX key exchange permits a man-in-the-middle attack. This issue is in krb5_init_creds_step in lib/krb5/init_creds_pw.c.

HighCVSS 7.4 · v3.1—No exploit Fix available

Published: May 15, 2019
Updated: Jun 16, 2026
EPSS: 1.9% · 80th percentile
CWE: CWE-295

Report tools

JSON

Action score

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS: 29 / 40 · 7.4 / 10
CISA KEV: 0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS: 1 / 30 · 1.9%

CISA SSVC decision

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: total

Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.

Get told when this record changes

Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
No public exploit code on record
A fix has been released

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Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

Vendor	Product	CPE
heimdal project	heimdal	cpe:2.3:a:heimdal_project:heimdal
fedoraproject	fedora	cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora
opensuse	backports sle	cpe:2.3:a:opensuse:backports_sle
opensuse	leap	cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:leap
debian	debian linux	cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux

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Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

debian debian linux9.0
fedoraproject fedora30
fedoraproject fedora31
heimdal project heimdalbefore 7.6.0
opensuse backports sle15.0
opensuse leap15.0
opensuse leap15.1
opensuse leap42.3

Package-level exposure

OSV and GitHub Advisory data: ecosystem, package and range. SBOM matching uses this table.

Ecosystem	Package	Affected range	Fix
Alpine:v3.10	heimdal	before 7.5.0-r5	7.5.0-r5
Alpine:v3.7	heimdal	before 7.4.0-r4	7.4.0-r4
Alpine:v3.8	heimdal	before 7.5.0-r3	7.5.0-r3
Alpine:v3.9	heimdal	before 7.5.0-r4	7.5.0-r4
Debian:12	heimdal	before 7.5.0+dfsg-3	7.5.0+dfsg-3
Debian:9	heimdal	before 7.1.0+dfsg-13+deb9u3	7.1.0+dfsg-13+deb9u3
openSUSE:Leap 15.0	libheimdal	before 7.7.0-lp151.3.3.1	7.7.0-lp151.3.3.1
SUSE:Package Hub 15	libheimdal	before 7.7.0-bp150.2.3.1	7.7.0-bp150.2.3.1
SUSE:Package Hub 15 SP1	libheimdal	before 7.7.0-bp151.4.3.1	7.7.0-bp151.4.3.1

Same product

heimdal project: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

CVE-2004-0434k5admind (kadmind) for Heimdal allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a Kerberos 4 compatibility administration request whose
41Plan
CVE-2022-44640Heimdal before 7.7.1 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code because of an invalid free in the ASN.1 codec used by the Key Distrib
40Plan
CVE-2017-11103Heimdal before 7.4 allows remote attackers to impersonate services with Orpheus' Lyre attacks because it obtains service-principal names in
34Monitor

Published before and after this one in the same product

← EarlierCVE-2017-6594Aug 28, 2017 · The transit path validation code in Heimdal before 7.3 might allow attackers to bypass the capath policy protection mechanism by leveraging
31Monitor
Later →CVE-2022-41916Nov 15, 2022 · Read one byte past a buffer when normalizing Unicode
30Monitor
Later →CVE-2021-44758Dec 26, 2022 · Heimdal before 7.7.1 allows attackers to cause a NULL pointer dereference in a SPNEGO acceptor via a preferred_mech_type of GSS_C_NO_OID and
30Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

Product / package	Fixed version	Source
alpine:heimdal	7.5.0-r5 · Alpine:v3.10	Package registry (OSV)
debian:heimdal	7.5.0+dfsg-3 · Debian:12	Package registry (OSV)
opensuse:libheimdal	7.7.0-lp151.3.3.1 · openSUSE:Leap 15.0	Package registry (OSV)
suse:libheimdal	7.7.0-bp150.2.3.1 · SUSE:Package Hub 15	Package registry (OSV)

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

No dated events beyond publication.

EPSS, last 120 days

FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

Credits

All researchers

Finders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.

No credits in the CNA record.

Variant candidates

Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.

No nightly-computed relations.

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

—

Bug bounty scope

No known public program.

Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).

Technical details

Attack conditions

Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
No account or password is required.
No user action is required.
Special conditions such as timing or configuration are required.

If successful

Confidentiality: high · data can be read
Integrity: high · data or configuration can be modified
Availability: none

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: High
Privileges required: None
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality impact: High
Integrity impact: High
Availability impact: None

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-295 · Improper Certificate Validation

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

nvd-primary

Root cause

A certificate validation error is silently swallowed instead of terminating the connection. Often, code added for a test environment makes its way into production.

The bug in code

The whole CWE-295 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

kotlin

1override fun checkServerTrusted(chain: Array<X509Certificate>, type: String) {
2  // Left empty for the test environment
3}

Fixed

kotlin

1val client = OkHttpClient.Builder()
2  .certificatePinner(
3    CertificatePinner.Builder()
4      .add("api.sirius.example", "sha256/…")
5      .build()
6  ).build()

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

Attack patterns (CAPEC)

ATT&CK techniques

—

Change log

Fix✗ → ✓Sep 28, 2026, 10:46 PM UTC

For records you follow, these changes also arrive as notifications. →

References

lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-07/msg00002.html

Show all references (10 more)

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records