How severe is CVE-2019-5736?

CVE-2019-5736 has a CVSS score of 8.6/10, rated HIGH. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2019-5736?

Affected package information for CVE-2019-5736 is not yet fully mapped. Check the official advisory links for details.

How do I fix CVE-2019-5736?

No fixed version has been published for CVE-2019-5736 yet. Monitor the advisory for updates, apply mitigations recommended by the vendor, and use O3 Security to track when a fix becomes available in your stack.

Is CVE-2019-5736 actively exploited in the wild?

Yes. There are 25 known exploit references for CVE-2019-5736, including 2 documented proof-of-concept exploits on Exploit-DB and 16 in-the-wild exploitations observed on GitHub and other sources. Treat this as actively exploitable and prioritize patching immediately. All exploit code should only be run in an isolated sandbox environment for research or authorized testing — never against production systems without explicit written authorization.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2019-5736?

CVE-2019-5736 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 95.9%, placing it in the 100th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A score above 50% indicates significantly elevated exploitation risk — immediate patching is strongly recommended.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2019-5736?

CVE-2019-5736 is classified as OS Command Injection (CWE-78). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation. This is a high-impact weakness class that often enables remote code execution or data exposure.

When was CVE-2019-5736 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2019-5736 was published on February 11, 2019 and was last updated on April 16, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

CVE-2019-5736: high severity vulnerability (CVSS 8.6)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

95.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Very High Risk100th percentile+36.71%

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.

Description

runc through 1.0-rc6, as used in Docker before 18.09.2 and other products, allows attackers to overwrite the host runc binary (and consequently obtain host root access) by leveraging the ability to execute a command as root within one of these types of containers: (1) a new container with an attacker-controlled image, or (2) an existing container, to which the attacker previously had write access, that can be attached with docker exec. This occurs because of file-descriptor mishandling, related to /proc/self/exe.

Frequently Asked Questions

runc through 1.0-rc6, as used in Docker before 18.09.2 and other products, allows attackers to overwrite the host runc binary (and consequently obtain host root access) by leveraging the ability to execute a command as root within one of these types of containers: (1) a new container with an attacker-controlled image, or (2) an existing container, to which the attacker previously had write access, that can be attached with docker exec. This occurs because of file-descriptor mishandling, related to /proc/self/exe.

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2019-5736 in your stack?

O3 detects CVE-2019-5736 across dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

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