Threats / TeamViewer / CVE-2019-18988
CVE-2019-18988
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-09-19
TeamViewer Desktop vulnerability
TeamViewer Desktop uses a shared AES encryption key across customer installations, allowing attackers with knowledge of this key to decrypt stored credentials and gain unauthorized remote access.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An attacker who obtains the hardcoded AES key can decrypt Unattended Access passwords and other protected configuration data from any TeamViewer Desktop installation, enabling remote system compromise without authentication.
CISA KEV Yes · 2021-11-034EPSS 0.04707 (verify live)5Exploit Public PoC6CVSS 7 (CISA)3CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: partial3
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 0.04707 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: TeamViewer, Desktop. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-521 CWE-521 — weakness family: Authentication.CWE assignment from the public NVD record (may be stale); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Technical Impact: partialCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 635 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
Public exploit available
Public exploit tooling is catalogued for this CVE (a public proof-of-concept / detection template). Catalog entries: Metasploit module. We link the catalog page(s) only — no payload or code is hosted or restated here.Link, never host — the catalog page is the source; basicsecurity.net does not redistribute payloads.
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 obtain or reverse-engineer the shared AES encryption key used by TeamViewer Desktop.
Business
The organization's reliance on a single cryptographic key across all customer instances creates a systemic vulnerability affecting the entire user base simultaneously.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I use the key to decrypt Unattended Access passwords stored in registry or configuration files on target systems.
Business
Remote access credentials become worthless as a security boundary, exposing systems to unauthorized login regardless of network segmentation or access policies.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I establish remote sessions to systems using the decrypted credentials, gaining full system control.
Business
Critical infrastructure and sensitive data become accessible to external attackers, enabling data theft, lateral movement, and operational disruption.
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
Coverage & confidence
— what we know, and what we don’tEstablished (cited)
Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden
Disclosure & credit2
Catalogued by mitreCNA
Credited with finding itNo finder is named in the public CVE record or the scanned vendor advisory — attribution scoped to the sources checked.
Found an error? Propose a correction.
A correction is a cited counter-claim — it must cite a source,
gets reviewed by a second human, and is never auto-applied. See the
correction convention and our identity
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