CVE-2019-15894
6.8 · MEDIUMOverview
CVE-2019-15894 is a medium-severity vulnerability affecting espressif esp-idf. It was published on October 7, 2019 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.8 (MEDIUM).
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.8, rated MEDIUM. It requires local or adjacent network access to exploit. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
Technical Description
An issue was discovered in Espressif ESP-IDF 2.x, 3.0.x through 3.0.9, 3.1.x through 3.1.6, 3.2.x through 3.2.3, and 3.3.x through 3.3.1. An attacker who uses fault injection to physically disrupt the ESP32 CPU can bypass the Secure Boot digest verification at startup, and boot unverified code from flash. The fault injection attack does not disable the Flash Encryption feature, so if the ESP32 is configured with the recommended combination of Secure Boot and Flash Encryption, then the impact is minimized. If the ESP32 is configured without Flash Encryption then successful fault injection allows arbitrary code execution. To protect devices with Flash Encryption and Secure Boot enabled against this attack, a firmware change must be made to permanently enable Flash Encryption in the field if it is not already permanently enabled.
Remediation
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from espressif. Update esp-idf to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
Affected Products
| Vendor | Product | Versions | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| espressif | esp-idf | >= 3.0, < 3.0.9 | Affected |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2019-15894?
CVE-2019-15894 is a medium-severity vulnerability affecting espressif esp-idf. It was published on October 7, 2019 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.8 (MEDIUM).
How severe is CVE-2019-15894?
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.8, rated MEDIUM. It requires local or adjacent network access to exploit. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
How do I fix or remediate CVE-2019-15894?
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from espressif. Update esp-idf to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
How can CyberStrike help with CVE-2019-15894?
CyberStrike's AI-powered security agents can automatically detect CVE-2019-15894 across your infrastructure using autonomous pentesting, DAST scanning, and HackBrowser. The platform continuously monitors for known vulnerabilities and provides actionable remediation guidance prioritized by real-world exploitability.
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