CVE-2019-15949 — Jakgibb
HIGHCVE-2019-15949 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) OS Command Injection vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Nagios XI before 5.6.6 allows remote command execution as root. The exploit requires access to the server as the nagios user, or access as the admin user via the web interface. The…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-05-03.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2019-15949.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2019-15949 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Nagios XI before 5.6.6 allows remote command execution as root. The exploit requires access to the server as the nagios user, or access as the admin user via the web interface. The getprofile.sh script, invoked by downloading a system profile (profile.php?cmd=download), is executed as root via a passwordless sudo entry; the script executes check_plugin, which is owned by the nagios user. A user logged into Nagios XI with permissions to modify plugins, or the nagios user on the server, can modify the check_plugin executable and insert malicious commands to execute as root.
Affected Products
nagios xinagiosResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Nagios Xi 5.6.6 - Authenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE)
by Calil Khalil · Apr 8, 2025
Nagios XI - Authenticated Remote Command Execution (Metasploit)
by Metasploit · Mar 10, 2020
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2019-15949 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-15949 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.