7.5

CVE-2019-9923: gnu tar NULL Pointer Dereference

CVSS: 7.5v3.1HighModified
AliasesMGASA-2019-0164UBUNTU-CVE-2019-9923DEBIAN-CVE-2019-9923
Published 22-03-2019Last modified 14-10-2026
Open JSON

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2019-9923 is a high (CVSS 7.5) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in gnu tar. EPSS estimates a 3.13% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 87.6% of scored vulnerabilities.

Overall risk
31/100
0100
Medium · default modelHow is this calculated?
CVSS score
7.5/10
010
High · v3.1 (CVE.org)
EPSS score
3.13%
0%100%
Low · +0.10 pp in 30 days
KEVNot listedIn no KEV catalog
RansomwareNone recordedNo known use recorded
Public exploits0No public exploits recorded

Advisory lineage

Upstream 0 · Downstream 7 · Related 7
OPENSUSE-SU-2019:1237-1OPENSUSE-SU-2024:11422-1SUSE-SU-2019:0926-1SUSE-SU-2019:14215-1SUSE-SU-2020:2806-1SUSE-SU-2022:1548-1

Timeline

  1. 22-03-2019
    PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
  2. 14-10-2026
    Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

pax_decode_header in sparse.c in GNU Tar before 1.32 had a NULL pointer dereference when parsing certain archives that have malformed extended headers.

CVSS metrics

7 scores · 4 sources · 3 versions

EPSS trend

Probability

3.13%

Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days

Percentile

88%

Versus all other CVEs

30-day change

+0.10 pp

From 3.03% on 18-09-2026

18-09-202618-10-2026
EPSS score
3.13%

Known exploited

Compare KEV catalogs

Not in any of the 3 tracked catalogs.

Public exploits

0 found

No public exploits indexed.

Weaknesses

CWE · root cause

Affected systems

Debian1 product
  • tar< 1.32+dfsg-1
Gnu1 product
Mageia1 product
  • tar< 1.31-1.1.mga6
Opensuse1 product
Ubuntu1 product
  • tar< 1.27.1-1ubuntu0.1+esm1 | < 1.28-2.1ubuntu0.2 | < 1.29b-2ubuntu0.2 | < 1.30+dfsg-7ubuntu0.20.04.1

5 vendors · 5 products

References

14 links
Show all 14 references