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Vulnerability record · CVE-2018-19417 · published 21 November 2018

CVE-2018-19417: Contiki-ng memory buffer overflow vulnerability

Contiki Ng · Contiki Ng

An issue was discovered in the MQTT server in Contiki-NG before 4.2. The function parse_publish_vhdr() that parses MQTT PUBLISH messages with a variable length header uses memcpy to input data into a fixed size buffer. The allocated buffer can fit only MQTT_MAX_TOPIC_LENGTH (default 64) bytes, and a length check is missing. This could lead to Remote Code Execution via a stack-smashing attack (overwriting the function return address). Contiki-NG does not separate the MQTT server from other servers and the OS modules, so access to all memory regions is possible.

10.0 CVSS 3.0 Critical EPSS 5.7% · top 7.3% CWE-119 · Memory buffer overflow
10.0CVSS 3.0 base score, v2 10.0
5.7%EPSS exploitation probability, 30 days
NoNot in CISA KEV
1Affected product versions listed by NVD
2References, 2 tagged exploit
17 Jun 2026Last modified by NVD

Description

An issue was discovered in the MQTT server in Contiki-NG before 4.2. The function parse_publish_vhdr() that parses MQTT PUBLISH messages with a variable length header uses memcpy to input data into a fixed size buffer. The allocated buffer can fit only MQTT_MAX_TOPIC_LENGTH (default 64) bytes, and a length check is missing. This could lead to Remote Code Execution via a stack-smashing attack (overwriting the function return address). Contiki-NG does not separate the MQTT server from other servers and the OS modules, so access to all memory regions is possible.

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

1 vulnerable configurations from NVD's CPE data, grouped by vendor and product.

References

LinkTags
https://github.com/contiki-ng/contiki-ng/issues/600 ExploitThird Party Advisory
https://github.com/contiki-ng/contiki-ng/issues/600 ExploitThird Party Advisory

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Related vulnerabilities

Same products first, then exploited flaws of the same weakness class.

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Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database (record CVE-2018-19417), CISA KEV, FIRST EPSS (scores of 2026-09-28). This page is refreshed as NVD updates the record.