# CVE-2019-16253: Privilege escalation in n/a

> A local attacker can escalate privileges to system level via the Samsung Text-to-speech Engine application on Android devices.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 25 Sep 2019
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-hgm2-f9hx-mh4c

## What is CVE-2019-16253?

CVE-2019-16253 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 25 Sep 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The Text-to-speech Engine (aka SamsungTTS) application before 3.0.02.7 and 3.0.00.101 for Android allows a local attacker to escalate privileges, e.g., to system privileges. The Samsung case ID is 101755.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-16253?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Samsung Text-to-Speech.

## How do I fix CVE-2019-16253?

No fix has been published for CVE-2019-16253 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2019-16253 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-16253 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Public exploit code:

- Exploit I discovered in October of 2022 with androids Package manager binary (pm) and the way it handled debugging flags, patched out by march 2023. Uses CVE-2019-16253 as a payload to obtain a system shell.  (github_poc): https://github.com/k0mraid3/K0mraid3s-System-Shell-PREBUILT

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2019-16253 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2019-16253 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 25 Sep 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-2019-16253 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-2019-16253/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-16253/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-16253
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-16253
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2019-16253

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-16253/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.