CVE-2019-0191 — karaf
MEDIUMCVE-2019-0191 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Path Traversal vulnerability in org.apache.karaf:karaf. A fix is available for org.apache.karaf:karaf — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Moderate severity vulnerability that affects org.apache.karaf:apache-karaf and org.apache.karaf:karaf
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2019-0191 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,567 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
org.apache.karaf:karaf☕org.apache.karaf:apache-karafReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Apache Karaf kar deployer reads .kar archives and extracts the paths from the "repository/" and "resources/" entries in the zip file. It then writes out the content of these paths to the Karaf repo and resources directories. However, it doesn't do any validation on the paths in the zip file. This means that a malicious user could craft a .kar file with ".." directory names and break out of the directories to write arbitrary content to the filesystem. This is the "Zip-slip" vulnerability - https://snyk.io/research/zip-slip-vulnerability. This vulnerability is low if the Karaf process user has limited permission on the filesystem. Any Apache Karaf releases prior 4.2.3 is impacted.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.apache.karaf:karaf | all versions | 4.2.3org.apache.karaf:karaf:4.2.3 |
| ☕Maven | org.apache.karaf:apache-karaf | all versions | 4.2.3org.apache.karaf:apache-karaf:4.2.3 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.karaf:karaf, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.apache.karaf:karaf to 4.2.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2019-0191 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2019-0191 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2019-0191. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-0191 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2019-0191 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.