CVE-2019-18988

CRITICALNVD 7.09.0▲
EchelonGraph scoreHIGH confidence

Score elevated to 9.0 because this CVE is listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03), indicating real-world exploitation has been confirmed by US federal agencies. NVD baseline CVSS 7.0 retained for reference. Confidence: HIGH.

Triggered by: CISA KEV (actively exploited)
Sources: cisa_kev, epss, ghsa, nvd
Trending — 3 sources updated this weekExploited in the wild
9.0EG
EchelonGraph verdictMitigate nowTreat as an emergency — this is being exploited.
  • Actively exploited in the wild (CISA-KEV)
CISA-KEV: ExploitedEPSS PROB: 4.7%CVSS: 7.0Exploit: cisa kev · ssvc active · Metasploit · public exploitExposed services: Not assessed

No fix is confirmed yet — apply a workaround or compensating control (WAF / firewall / segmentation) and watch for the fix.

TeamViewer Desktop through 14.7.1965 allows a bypass of remote-login access control because the same key is used for different customers' installations. It used a shared AES key for all installations since at least as far back as v7.0.43148, and used it for at least OptionsPasswordAES in the current version of the product. If an attacker were to know this key, they could decrypt protect information stored in the registry or configuration files of TeamViewer. With versions before v9.x , this allowed for attackers to decrypt the Unattended Access password to the system (which allows for remote login to the system as well as headless file browsing). The latest version still uses the same key for OptionPasswordAES but appears to have changed how the Unattended Access password is stored. While in most cases an attacker requires an existing session on a system, if the registry/configuration keys were stored off of the machine (such as in a file share or online), an attacker could then decrypt the required password to login to the system.

CVSS v3
7.0
EG Score
9.0CRITICALhigh confidence
EG Risk
81
EG Risk 81/100CISA SSVC

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity90% × 45%
Exploitation100% × 40%
Automatability0% × 15%
CISA SSVC: Track at low or medium mission impact; Attend at high (mission-essential systems).
Action: No fix is confirmed yet. Restrict network exposure of the affected system or apply the vendor's mitigation within your standard update timelines at low or medium mission impact and sooner than that at high, and watch the vendor's advisory for the fix.
EPSS PROB
4.7%
EPSS %ILE
91st
KEV
⚠ Exploited

CISA SSVCTrack at low or medium mission impact; Attend at high (mission-essential systems).

No fix is confirmed yet. Restrict network exposure of the affected system or apply the vendor's mitigation within your standard update timelines at low or medium mission impact and sooner than that at high, and watch the vendor's advisory for the fix.

Exploitation active (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact partial (CISA Vulnrichment). Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it: high means the affected system is essential to your organisation's mission, or its compromise could cause irreversible harm to people. CISA's decision table

Published

February 7, 2020

Last Modified

November 7, 2025

Advisory Details (4)

Auto-updated Jun 12, 2026
⚠️ Active exploitation confirmed. No fix on record yet. Sources: cisa.
cisa🔴 Active Exploitation

Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog | CISA

Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog | CISA. Listed in CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2019-18988
generic

TeamViewer - WhyNotSecurity

https://whynotsecurity.com/blog/teamviewer/
generic

Nic Losby on X: "https://t.co/avUoHNCJ4G Teamviewer has been storing user passwords encrypted with AES, not hashed, in the registry accessible to low privilege users on the machine. This works for versions dating back from at least as far back as 2012 to the latest version." / X

https://twitter.com/Blurbdust/status/1224212682594770946?s=20
generic

Specification on CVE-2019-18988 - TeamViewer Community

https://community.teamviewer.com/t5/Announcements/Specification-on-CVE-2019-18988/td-p/82264

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 60× in last 7d / 266× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

Showing the most recent 100 of 1,134 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-10-10 01:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  2. 2026-10-09 22:16 UTCEG score recompute
  3. 2026-10-09 22:15 UTCGHSA enrichment
  4. 2026-10-09 20:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-10-09 18:35 UTCGHSA enrichment
  6. 2026-10-09 14:56 UTCGHSA enrichment
  7. 2026-10-09 11:15 UTCGHSA enrichment
  8. 2026-10-09 07:36 UTCGHSA enrichment
  9. 2026-10-09 03:56 UTCGHSA enrichment
  10. 2026-10-09 00:15 UTCGHSA enrichment
  11. 2026-10-08 20:35 UTCGHSA enrichment
  12. 2026-10-08 16:55 UTCEG score recompute
  13. 2026-10-08 16:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  14. 2026-10-08 16:37 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-10-08 13:15 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-10-08 09:34 UTCGHSA enrichment
  17. 2026-10-08 05:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  18. 2026-10-08 02:15 UTCEG score recompute
  19. 2026-10-08 02:15 UTCGHSA enrichment
  20. 2026-10-07 23:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-10-07 22:35 UTCGHSA enrichment
  22. 2026-10-07 18:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  23. 2026-10-07 15:16 UTCGHSA enrichment
  24. 2026-10-07 11:35 UTCGHSA enrichment
  25. 2026-10-07 07:56 UTCGHSA enrichment
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  1. 2026-10-07 04:16 UTCGHSA enrichment
  2. 2026-10-07 00:35 UTCGHSA enrichment
  3. 2026-10-06 20:51 UTCGHSA enrichment
  4. 2026-10-06 17:09 UTCEG score recompute
  5. 2026-10-06 17:09 UTCGHSA enrichment
  6. 2026-10-06 15:12 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-10-06 13:30 UTCGHSA enrichment
  8. 2026-10-06 09:50 UTCGHSA enrichment
  9. 2026-10-06 06:10 UTCGHSA enrichment
  10. 2026-10-06 02:30 UTCGHSA enrichment
  11. 2026-10-05 22:50 UTCGHSA enrichment
  12. 2026-10-05 19:11 UTCEG score recompute
  13. 2026-10-05 19:10 UTCGHSA enrichment
  14. 2026-10-05 17:39 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-10-05 15:30 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-10-05 11:48 UTCGHSA enrichment
  17. 2026-10-05 08:09 UTCGHSA enrichment
  18. 2026-10-05 04:30 UTCGHSA enrichment
  19. 2026-10-05 00:50 UTCEG score recompute
  20. 2026-10-05 00:49 UTCGHSA enrichment
  21. 2026-10-04 23:18 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-10-04 21:05 UTCGHSA enrichment
  23. 2026-10-04 17:25 UTCGHSA enrichment
  24. 2026-10-04 13:45 UTCGHSA enrichment
  25. 2026-10-04 10:06 UTCGHSA enrichment
  26. 2026-10-04 06:26 UTCGHSA enrichment
  27. 2026-10-04 02:46 UTCGHSA enrichment
  28. 2026-10-03 23:06 UTCGHSA enrichment
  29. 2026-10-03 19:23 UTCGHSA enrichment
  30. 2026-10-03 15:44 UTCEG score recompute
  31. 2026-10-03 15:44 UTCGHSA enrichment
  32. 2026-10-03 14:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  33. 2026-10-03 12:01 UTCGHSA enrichment
  34. 2026-10-03 08:21 UTCGHSA enrichment
  35. 2026-10-03 04:38 UTCGHSA enrichment
  36. 2026-10-03 00:58 UTCGHSA enrichment
  37. 2026-10-02 21:19 UTCGHSA enrichment
  38. 2026-10-02 17:38 UTCEG score recompute
  39. 2026-10-02 17:38 UTCGHSA enrichment
  40. 2026-10-02 13:59 UTCGHSA enrichment
  41. 2026-10-02 10:19 UTCGHSA enrichment
  42. 2026-10-02 06:40 UTCGHSA enrichment
  43. 2026-10-02 02:58 UTCGHSA enrichment
  44. 2026-10-01 23:17 UTCEG score recompute
  45. 2026-10-01 23:17 UTCGHSA enrichment
  46. 2026-10-01 19:38 UTCGHSA enrichment
  47. 2026-10-01 15:58 UTCGHSA enrichment
  48. 2026-10-01 12:18 UTCGHSA enrichment
  49. 2026-10-01 08:36 UTCGHSA enrichment
  50. 2026-10-01 04:57 UTCGHSA enrichment
  51. 2026-10-01 01:17 UTCGHSA enrichment
  52. 2026-09-30 21:37 UTCGHSA enrichment
  53. 2026-09-30 17:57 UTCEG score recompute
  54. 2026-09-30 17:57 UTCGHSA enrichment
  55. 2026-09-30 14:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  56. 2026-09-30 14:16 UTCGHSA enrichment
  57. 2026-09-30 10:35 UTCGHSA enrichment
  58. 2026-09-30 06:51 UTCGHSA enrichment
  59. 2026-09-30 03:11 UTCGHSA enrichment
  60. 2026-09-29 23:32 UTCGHSA enrichment
  61. 2026-09-29 19:53 UTCGHSA enrichment
  62. 2026-09-29 16:11 UTCEG score recompute
  63. 2026-09-29 16:11 UTCGHSA enrichment
  64. 2026-09-29 12:31 UTCGHSA enrichment
  65. 2026-09-29 08:51 UTCGHSA enrichment
  66. 2026-09-29 05:11 UTCGHSA enrichment
  67. 2026-09-29 01:32 UTCGHSA enrichment
  68. 2026-09-28 21:52 UTCEG score recompute
  69. 2026-09-28 21:52 UTCGHSA enrichment
  70. 2026-09-28 18:13 UTCGHSA enrichment
  71. 2026-09-28 14:33 UTCEG score recompute
  72. 2026-09-28 14:33 UTCGHSA enrichment
  73. 2026-09-28 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
  74. 2026-09-28 10:53 UTCGHSA enrichment
  75. 2026-09-28 07:13 UTCGHSA enrichment

Publicly available exploits

(3 references)

Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 Metasploit module) (2 GitHub PoCs). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.

  • Metasploitpost/windows/gather/credentials/teamviewer_passwords✓ verified
    First seen Jan 1, 2019

    Windows Gather TeamViewer Passwords

    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoCmr-r3b00t/CVE-2019-18988
    First seen Jul 13, 2020

    TeamViewer Store Credentials Decryption

    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoCreversebrain/CVE-2019-18988
    First seen Jul 1, 2020
    Open source ↗

Related CVEs(same CWE)

Frequently asked(6)

What is CVE-2019-18988?
CVE-2019-18988 is a critical vulnerability published on February 7, 2020. TeamViewer Desktop through 14.7.1965 allows a bypass of remote-login access control because the same key is used for different customers' installations. It used a shared AES key for all installations since at least as far back as v7.0.43148, and used it for at least OptionsPasswordAES in the…
When was CVE-2019-18988 disclosed?
CVE-2019-18988 was first published on February 7, 2020, with the most recent update on November 7, 2025. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2019-18988 actively exploited?
Yes. CISA added CVE-2019-18988 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on November 3, 2021, affecting TeamViewer Desktop. KEV listing indicates confirmed exploitation in the wild; this CVE warrants immediate attention. No fix is confirmed yet. Restrict network exposure of the affected system or apply the vendor's mitigation, and watch the vendor's advisory for the fix.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2019-18988?
CVE-2019-18988 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.0 (NVD). EchelonGraph synthesises NVD + CISA KEV + FIRST EPSS + GHSA into a combined EG score of 9.0 (CRITICAL).
Which products are affected by CVE-2019-18988?
CVE-2019-18988 affects TeamViewer Desktop.
How do I remediate CVE-2019-18988?
No fix for CVE-2019-18988 is confirmed yet. Until one is published, restrict network exposure of the affected system or apply the vendor's mitigation — for example, keep it off the internet or limit it to trusted networks — and watch the vendor's advisory for the fix.

Dependency Blast Radius

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