CVE-2019-14867 — ipa
HIGHCVE-2019-14867 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) Code Injection vulnerability in ipa. A fix is available for ipa — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Code injection in FreeIPA
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-2019-14867 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 378,156 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
ipa🐍ipa🐍ipa🐍freeipa🐍freeipa🐍freeipaReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
A flaw was found in IPA, all 4.6.x versions before 4.6.7, all 4.7.x versions before 4.7.4 and all 4.8.x versions before 4.8.3, in the way the internal function ber_scanf() was used in some components of the IPA server, which parsed kerberos key data. An unauthenticated attacker who could trigger parsing of the krb principal key could cause the IPA server to crash or in some conditions, cause arbitrary code to be executed on the server hosting the IPA server.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | ipa | ≥ 4.6.2&&< 4.6.7 | 4.6.7pip install --upgrade 'ipa==4.6.7' |
| 🐍PyPI | ipa | ≥ 4.7.0&&< 4.7.4 | 4.7.4pip install --upgrade 'ipa==4.7.4' |
| 🐍PyPI | ipa | ≥ 4.8.0&&< 4.8.3 | 4.8.3pip install --upgrade 'ipa==4.8.3' |
| 🐍PyPI | freeipa | ≥ 4.6.2&&< 4.6.7 | 4.6.7pip install --upgrade 'freeipa==4.6.7' |
| 🐍PyPI | freeipa | ≥ 4.7.0&&< 4.7.4 | 4.7.4pip install --upgrade 'freeipa==4.7.4' |
| 🐍PyPI | freeipa | ≥ 4.8.0&&< 4.8.3 | 4.8.3pip install --upgrade 'freeipa==4.8.3' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ipa, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update ipa to 4.6.7 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2019-14867 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-2019-14867 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2019-14867. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
This flaw can be exploited by an unauthenticated attacker (PR:N) who could create a specially crafted "krbPrincipalKey" and send it to the IPA server (AV:N). The attack is relatively easy to conduct (AC:L), since all the attacker requires is a string which is long enough to write beyond the limits of the buffer on…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | ipa-0:4.6.5-11.el7_7.4 | RHSA-2020:0378 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | idm:DL1-8010020191127093529.6573b795 | RHBA-2019:4268 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 Update Services for SAP Solutions | idm:DL1-8000020200217171713.2874843d | RHSA-2020:1269 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-14867 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2019-14867 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.