# CVE-2018-19981: Information disclosure in n/a

> The AWS SDK for Android stores temporary credentials in plain text, allowing attackers with root access to steal them and impersonate users.

- **Severity:** High 7.2 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 4 Apr 2019
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-4rp2-whvp-25jm

## What is CVE-2018-19981?

CVE-2018-19981 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 4 Apr 2019. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Amazon AWS SDK <=2.8.5 for Android uses Android SharedPreferences to store plain text AWS STS Temporary Credentials retrieved by AWS Cognito Identity Service. An attacker can use these credentials to create authenticated and/or authorized requests. Note that the attacker must have "root" privilege access to the Android filesystem in order to exploit this vulnerability (i.e. the device has been compromised, such as disabling or bypassing Android's fundamental security mechanisms).

Weakness: CWE-312 (Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-19981?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Amazon Aws Software Development Kit.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-19981?

No fix has been published for CVE-2018-19981 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2018-19981 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-19981 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2026-19642](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-19642/): Out-of-bounds write in the Base64 decoder in Amazon aws-sdk-cpp (medium 6.0)
- [CVE-2026-19643](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-19643/): Out-of-bounds read in the Base64 decoder in Amazon aws-sdk-cpp on signed-char platforms (medium 6.0)
- [CVE-2023-51651](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-51651/): Potential URI resolution path traversal in the AWS SDK for PHP (medium 6.0)
- [CVE-2022-4725](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-4725/): AWS SDK XML Parser XpathUtils.java XpathUtils server-side request forgery (medium 5.5)
- [CVE-2022-2582](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-2582/): Exposure of unencrypted plaintext hash in github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go (medium 4.3)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-19981 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-19981 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 4 Apr 2019. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-19981 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-19981/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-19981/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-19981
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-19981
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-19981

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-19981/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.