# CVE-2018-4059: Missing authorization in coTURN

> An attacker with local access can exploit an unauthenticated telnet admin portal to gain administrator control of the coTURN server.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/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:** Yes
- **Published:** 21 Mar 2019
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2018-4059, GHSA-7q4q-c7wp-55p8, UBUNTU-CVE-2018-4059

## What is CVE-2018-4059?

CVE-2018-4059 is a medium-severity missing authorization vulnerability in Talos coTURN, published on 21 Mar 2019. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An exploitable unsafe default configuration vulnerability exists in the TURN server function of coTURN prior to version 4.5.0.9. By default, the TURN server runs an unauthenticated telnet admin portal on the loopback interface. This can provide administrator access to the TURN server configuration, which can lead to additional attacks. An attacker who can get access to the telnet port can gain administrator access to the TURN server.

Weakness: CWE-862 (Missing Authorization)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-4059?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Coturn Project Coturn.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-4059?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2018-4059 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-4059 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Talos coTURN

- [CVE-2018-4056](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-4056/): SQL injection in coTURN (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2026-43994](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-43994/): Coturn: Stack buffer overflow in decode_oauth_token_gcm() (high 8.1)
- [CVE-2018-4058](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-4058/): Server-side request forgery in coTURN (high 7.7)
- [CVE-2026-40613](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-40613/): Coturn: Misaligned Memory Access in coturn STUN Attribute Parser (Remote DoS on ARM64) (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2026-53450](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53450/): Coturn: IPv4-mapped 127.0.0.1 bypasses default loopback peer protection (high 7.4)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-4059 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-4059 is a medium-severity missing authorization vulnerability in Talos coTURN, published on 21 Mar 2019. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-4059 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Talos coTURN. 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-2018-4059/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-4059/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-4059
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-4059
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-4059

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-4059/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.