CVE-2019-11287 – This vulnerability allows attackers to cause a ... (How to Fix)

Q: What is the severity of CVE-2019-11287?

CVE-2019-11287 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (HIGH). This vulnerability allows attackers to cause a denial of service (DoS) in RabbitMQ's web management plugin by sending specially crafted HTTP requests with malicious Erlang format strings in the 'X-Reason' header. The format string expansion consumes excessive heap memory, causing the server to crash. Organizations running vulnerable versions of RabbitMQ with the web management plugin enabled are affected.

📋 TL;DR

This vulnerability allows attackers to cause a denial of service (DoS) in RabbitMQ's web management plugin by sending specially crafted HTTP requests with malicious Erlang format strings in the 'X-Reason' header. The format string expansion consumes excessive heap memory, causing the server to crash. Organizations running vulnerable versions of RabbitMQ with the web management plugin enabled are affected.

💻 Affected Systems

Products:

Pivotal RabbitMQ
RabbitMQ for Pivotal Platform

Versions: RabbitMQ 3.7.x prior to 3.7.21, 3.8.x prior to 3.8.1; Pivotal Platform 1.16.x prior to 1.16.7, 1.17.x prior to 1.17.4

Operating Systems: All platforms running affected RabbitMQ versions

Default Config Vulnerable: ⚠️ Yes

Notes: Only affects systems with the web management plugin enabled (default in many installations). The management UI port (typically 15672) must be accessible.

📦 What is this software?

⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact

🔴

Worst Case

Complete service outage of RabbitMQ, disrupting message queue operations and dependent applications until manual restart.

🟠

Likely Case

Intermittent service disruptions and degraded performance due to repeated crashes, requiring administrative intervention.

🟢

If Mitigated

Minimal impact if web management interface is not exposed to untrusted networks and proper network segmentation is in place.

🌐 Internet-Facing: HIGH - The web management plugin is often exposed for administration, making internet-facing instances particularly vulnerable to DoS attacks.

🏢 Internal Only: MEDIUM - Internal attackers or compromised internal systems could still exploit this to disrupt messaging services.

🎯 Exploit Status

Public PoC: ⚠️ Yes

Weaponized: LIKELY

Unauthenticated Exploit: ⚠️ Yes

Complexity: LOW

Exploitation requires no authentication and uses simple HTTP requests. Public proof-of-concept code demonstrates the attack.

🛠️ Fix & Mitigation

✅ Official Fix

Patch Version: RabbitMQ 3.7.21, 3.8.1; Pivotal Platform 1.16.7, 1.17.4

Vendor Advisory: https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2020:0078

Restart Required: Yes

Instructions:

1. Backup RabbitMQ configuration and data. 2. Stop RabbitMQ service. 3. Upgrade to patched version using package manager (apt/yum) or manual installation. 4. Restart RabbitMQ service. 5. Verify service is running and management interface is accessible.

🔧 Temporary Workarounds

Disable Web Management Plugin

linux

Temporarily disable the vulnerable web management plugin to prevent exploitation while planning upgrade.

rabbitmq-plugins disable rabbitmq_management

Restrict Network Access

linux

Use firewall rules to restrict access to RabbitMQ management port (default 15672) to trusted IPs only.

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 15672 -s TRUSTED_IP -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 15672 -j DROP

🧯 If You Can't Patch

Implement strict network segmentation to isolate RabbitMQ management interface from untrusted networks.
Deploy a web application firewall (WAF) or reverse proxy with request filtering to block malicious X-Reason headers.

🔍 How to Verify

Check if Vulnerable:

Check RabbitMQ version and verify it's within affected ranges: rabbitmqctl status | grep 'RabbitMQ version'

Check Version:

rabbitmqctl status | grep -oP '(?<=RabbitMQ version: )\d+\.\d+\.\d+'

Verify Fix Applied:

Confirm version is 3.7.21+, 3.8.1+, or corresponding Pivotal Platform versions. Test by attempting to send a crafted request with X-Reason header to management port and verify no crash occurs.

📡 Detection & Monitoring

Log Indicators:

RabbitMQ crash logs with heap exhaustion errors
Repeated restarts of rabbitmq-server service
HTTP requests containing 'X-Reason' header with unusual format strings in access logs

Network Indicators:

Unusual volume of HTTP POST/GET requests to port 15672
Requests with X-Reason header containing Erlang format specifiers like ~p, ~s

SIEM Query:

source="rabbitmq.log" AND ("crash" OR "heap" OR "out of memory") OR (http_user_agent="*" AND http_request_header="X-Reason: ~*")

📊 Metadata

CVE ID: CVE-2019-11287

CVSS v3 Score: 7.5 (HIGH)

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CWE: CWE-400

Published: November 23, 2019

Last Updated: April 2, 2025

🔗 References

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2020:0078 Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/DrunkenShells/Disclosures/tree/master/CVE-2019-11287-DoS%20via%20Heap%20Overflow-RabbitMQ%20Web%20Management%20Plugin Exploit,Third Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/07/msg00011.html Third Party Advisory
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/EEQ6O7PMNJKYFMQYHAB55L423GYK63SO/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/PYTGR3D5FW2O25RXZOTIZMOD2HAUVBE4/
https://pivotal.io/security/cve-2019-11287 Vendor Advisory
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2020:0078 Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/DrunkenShells/Disclosures/tree/master/CVE-2019-11287-DoS%20via%20Heap%20Overflow-RabbitMQ%20Web%20Management%20Plugin Exploit,Third Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/07/msg00011.html Third Party Advisory
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/EEQ6O7PMNJKYFMQYHAB55L423GYK63SO/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/PYTGR3D5FW2O25RXZOTIZMOD2HAUVBE4/
https://pivotal.io/security/cve-2019-11287 Vendor Advisory

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📋 TL;DR

💻 Affected Systems

📦 What is this software?

Debian Linux by Debian

Fedora by Fedoraproject

Fedora by Fedoraproject

Openstack by Redhat

Rabbitmq by Pivotal Software

Rabbitmq by Pivotal Software

Rabbitmq by Pivotal Software

Rabbitmq Server by Broadcom

⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact

Worst Case

Likely Case

If Mitigated

🎯 Exploit Status

🛠️ Fix & Mitigation

✅ Official Fix

Instructions:

🔧 Temporary Workarounds

Disable Web Management Plugin

Restrict Network Access

🧯 If You Can't Patch

🔍 How to Verify

Check if Vulnerable:

Check Version:

Verify Fix Applied:

📡 Detection & Monitoring

Log Indicators:

Network Indicators:

SIEM Query:

📊 Metadata

🔗 References

📤 Share & Export

🔗 Related Vulnerabilities