# CVE-2019-12312: Null dereference in n/a

> An attacker can cause a denial of service by triggering a NULL pointer dereference in the Libreswan IKE daemon, leading to a service restart.

- **Severity:** High 7.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 24 May 2019
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2019-12312, GHSA-mg44-55g8-hfpm

## What is CVE-2019-12312?

CVE-2019-12312 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 24 May 2019. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In Libreswan 3.27 an assertion failure can lead to a pluto IKE daemon restart. An attacker can trigger a NULL pointer dereference by initiating an IKEv2 IKE_SA_INIT exchange, followed by a bogus INFORMATIONAL exchange instead of the normallly expected IKE_AUTH exchange. This affects send_v2N_spi_response_from_state() in programs/pluto/ikev2_send.c that will then trigger a NULL pointer dereference leading to a restart of libreswan.

Weakness: CWE-617 (Reachable Assertion), CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-12312?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Libreswan Libreswan.

## How do I fix CVE-2019-12312?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2019-12312 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-12312 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2013-7283](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-7283/): Race condition in n/a (critical 9.3)
- [CVE-2026-12413](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-12413/): IKEv2 Denial of Service via malformed fragmentation (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2026-50721](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-50721/): IKEv1 Denial of Service via RSA-SHA1 (PKCS#1 Version 1.5 Encrypted) authentication payload (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2026-50722](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-50722/): IKEv2 Denial of Service via RSA-SHA1 (PKCS#1 RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5) authentication payload (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2023-30570](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-30570/): Denial of service in n/a (high 7.5)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2019-12312 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2019-12312 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 24 May 2019. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-12312 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-2019-12312/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-12312/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-12312
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-12312
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2019-12312

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-12312/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.