Threats / Nagios / CVE-2019-15949
CVE-2019-15949
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Nagios XI vulnerability
Nagios XI allows remote code execution through modification of the check_plugin executable, enabling attackers to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An authenticated or network-accessible attacker can modify the check_plugin executable in Nagios XI to inject malicious commands that execute with root-level privileges, achieving remote code execution on the monitoring infrastructure.
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreExploit available
Public proof-of-concept exploit code is cataloged for this vulnerability.We link the existence of the exploit; we do not host or redistribute payloads.
Reported exploitation
1 independent public report of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.77741 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Nagios, Nagios XI. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-78 OS Command Injection — weakness family: Injection.CWE assignment from the public NVD record; the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I identify that Nagios XI exposes the check_plugin executable with insufficient access controls.
Business
Monitoring infrastructure becomes a pivot point for lateral movement into critical systems.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I modify the check_plugin executable to insert malicious commands that will be executed by the Nagios process.
Business
Attacker gains root-level code execution on the monitoring server.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I execute arbitrary commands with root privileges through the compromised check_plugin.
Business
Complete compromise of the monitoring infrastructure and potential access to all monitored systems and credentials.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05