# CVE-2019-9496: Denial of service in hostapd with SAE support

> An attacker can crash the hostapd process by sending an invalid SAE authentication sequence, causing a denial of service on Wi-Fi networks using SAE.

- **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:** 17 Apr 2019
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** ALPINE-CVE-2019-9496, DEBIAN-CVE-2019-9496, GHSA-cvwc-47mg-vx9r

## What is CVE-2019-9496?

CVE-2019-9496 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Fedoraproject Fedora, published on 17 Apr 2019. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An invalid authentication sequence could result in the hostapd process terminating due to missing state validation steps when processing the SAE confirm message when in hostapd/AP mode. All version of hostapd with SAE support are vulnerable. An attacker may force the hostapd process to terminate, performing a denial of service attack. Both hostapd with SAE support and wpa_supplicant with SAE support prior to and including version 2.7 are affected.

Weakness: CWE-287 (Improper Authentication), CWE-642 (External Control of Critical State Data)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-9496?

It affects 3 products.


Products: Fedoraproject Fedora, W1.fi Hostapd, W1.fi Wpa Supplicant.

## How do I fix CVE-2019-9496?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2019-9496 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-9496 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Fedoraproject Fedora

- [CVE-2024-4577](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-4577/): PHP-CGI OS Command Injection (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2021-39226](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-39226/): Grafana Authentication Bypass (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2019-5544](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-5544/): VMware ESXi and Horizon DaaS OpenSLP Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2024-4947](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-4947/): Google Chromium V8 Type Confusion (critical 9.6, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2024-4671](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-4671/): Google Chromium Visuals Use-After-Free (critical 9.6, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2019-9496 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2019-9496 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Fedoraproject Fedora, published on 17 Apr 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-2019-9496 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Fedoraproject Fedora. 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-2019-9496/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-9496/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-9496
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-9496
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2019-9496

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-9496/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.