CVE-2019-18988

TeamViewer Desktop Bypass Remote Login Vulnerability

Exploited in attacks High 7.0 Attack chance: 4.7%

What it is

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.

CISA: TeamViewer Desktop allows for bypass of remote-login access control because the same AES key is used for different customers' installations. If an attacker were to know this key, they could decrypt protected information stored in registry or configuration files or decryption of the Unattended Access password to the system (which allows for remote login to the system).

What to do

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Deadline for US federal agencies: May 3, 2022

Added to the CISA list: November 3, 2021
Published: February 7, 2020
Severity: High 7.0 CVSS 3.1
Chance of attacks in the next 30 days (EPSS): 4.7% in the top 8.2% of all known vulnerabilities
Weakness: CWE-521
More details: NVD · CVE.org · CISA

All references (4)

Sources: Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (CISA, public domain), CVE records (cve.org) and EPSS (FIRST). The chance of attacks is the EPSS estimate that someone will try to exploit the flaw in the next 30 days.