Cyber Resilience

CVE-2019-11072

Memory Safety in Lighttpd ≤ 1.4.53

Public PoCHigh EPSSMemory Safety
Published
10 April 2019
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3 9.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.74 99.4th percentile
Risk Priority 97 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2019-11072 is a critical-severity Integer Overflow or Wraparound (CWE-190) vulnerability in Lighttpd Lighttpd. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked in the top 0.6% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

lighttpd before 1.4.54 has a signed integer overflow, which might allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a malicious HTTP GET request, as demonstrated by mishandling of /%2F? in…

more

burl_normalize_2F_to_slash_fix in burl.c. NOTE: The developer states "The feature which can be abused to cause the crash is a new feature in lighttpd 1.4.50, and is not enabled by default. It must be explicitly configured in the config file (e.g. lighttpd.conf). Certain input will trigger an abort() in lighttpd when that feature is enabled. lighttpd detects the underflow or realloc() will fail (in both 32-bit and 64-bit executables), also detected in lighttpd. Either triggers an explicit abort() by lighttpd. This is not exploitable beyond triggering the explicit abort() with subsequent application exit.

CWE(s)
CWE-190

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
attack.mitre.org →
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
attack.mitre.org →
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-12642Same product: Lighttpd Lighttpd
CVE-2026-27281Shared CWE-190
CVE-2025-58715Shared CWE-190
CVE-2024-43623Shared CWE-190
CVE-2016-1010Shared CWE-190
CVE-2024-30001Shared CWE-190
CVE-2023-38698Shared CWE-190
CVE-2023-24909Shared CWE-190
CVE-2026-2272Shared CWE-190
CVE-2025-50166Shared CWE-190

Affected Assets

lighttpd
lighttpd
≤ 1.4.53

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V5.2.6

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require use of safe arithmetic, bounds checks, and testing that prevent integer overflows.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance mostly match
finds

Security testing in development can detect integer overflows before release.

A.8.25 Secure development life cycle partial match
prevents

Secure SDLC mandates input validation and arithmetic checks that prevent integer overflows.

A.8.26 Application security requirements partial match
degrades

Application security requirements include bounds checking and safe arithmetic to avoid overflow conditions.

A.8.27 Secure system architecture and engineering principles partial match
degrades

Secure architecture principles require defensive coding patterns that mitigate integer wraparound risks.

A.8.28 Secure coding partial match
prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe integer operations and mandate overflow-safe constructs.

References