# CVE-2019-15894: Security feature bypass in n/a

> Physical fault injection bypasses Secure Boot verification, allowing unverified code execution if Flash Encryption is not permanently enabled.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 7 Oct 2019
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-hgpr-gf26-38f8

## What is CVE-2019-15894?

CVE-2019-15894 is a medium-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 7 Oct 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An issue was discovered in Espressif ESP-IDF 2.x, 3.0.x through 3.0.9, 3.1.x through 3.1.6, 3.2.x through 3.2.3, and 3.3.x through 3.3.1. An attacker who uses fault injection to physically disrupt the ESP32 CPU can bypass the Secure Boot digest verification at startup, and boot unverified code from flash. The fault injection attack does not disable the Flash Encryption feature, so if the ESP32 is configured with the recommended combination of Secure Boot and Flash Encryption, then the impact is minimized. If the ESP32 is configured without Flash Encryption then successful fault injection allows arbitrary code execution. To protect devices with Flash Encryption and Secure Boot enabled against this attack, a firmware change must be made to permanently enable Flash Encryption in the field if it is not already permanently enabled.

Weakness: CWE-755 (Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-15894?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Espressif Esp-Idf.

## How do I fix CVE-2019-15894?

No fix has been published for CVE-2019-15894 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2019-15894 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-15894 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2026-45328](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-45328/): ESF-IDF: Out-of-Bounds Write in ESP-TEE Secure Service Wrappers (critical 9.3)
- [CVE-2024-53406](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-53406/): Auth bypass in n/a (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2021-28139](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-28139/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2024-33453](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-33453/): Information disclosure in n/a (high 8.1)
- [CVE-2019-12587](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-12587/): Weak cryptography in n/a (high 8.1)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2019-15894 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2019-15894 is a medium-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 7 Oct 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-15894 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-2019-15894/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-15894/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-15894
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-15894
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2019-15894

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-15894/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.