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CVE-2009-5138

21
FAUCET Score

CVE-2009-5138 describes a vulnerability in GnuTLS versions prior to 2.7.6, where the software incorrectly treats version 1 X.509 certificates as intermediate Certificate Authorities (CAs) if the GNUTLS_VERIFY_ALLOW_X509_V1_CA_CRT flag is not enabled. This misinterpretation allows remote attackers to bypass security restrictions by using a trusted X.509 V1 certificate to issue new, unauthorized certificates. The vulnerability has a CVSS score of 5.8, indicating a medium severity with network-based attacks requiring medium complexity to achieve partial confidentiality and integrity impacts. There is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code, or significant community discussion surrounding this CVE.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
<= 2.7.5CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:gnu:gnutls:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
2.7.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:gnu:gnutls:2.7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
2.7.1CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:gnu:gnutls:2.7.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
2.7.2CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:gnu:gnutls:2.7.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
2.7.3CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:gnu:gnutls:2.7.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 2.0

5.8MEDIUM

AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N

Confidentiality Impact
PARTIAL
Integrity Impact
PARTIAL
Availability Impact
NONE
Access Vector
NETWORK
Access Complexity
MEDIUM
Authentication
NONE
Exploitability Score
8.6
Impact Score
4.9
CvssVersion
2.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
1.81%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
76.4%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-28
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0181 is in the 56th percentile among its peer group of 19,958 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.0 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.2 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (2)

redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5Fixed in: gnutls-0:1.4.1-14.el5_10
View patch
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6Fixed in: mingw32-gnutls

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2009-5138Moderate

gnutls: incorrect handling of V1 intermediate certificates

Jan 9, 2009

References

article.gmane.org / gmane.comp.security.oss.general/12223
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2014-03/msg00000.html
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2014-03/msg00001.html
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2014-03/msg00003.html
lists.opensuse.org / opensuse-security-announce/2014-03/msg00020.html
rhn.redhat.com / errata/RHSA-2014-0247.html
bugzilla.redhat.com / show_bug.cgi
secunia.com / advisories/57254
secunia.com / advisories/57260
secunia.com / advisories/57274
secunia.com / advisories/57321
gitorious.org / gnutls/gnutls/commit/c8dcbedd1fdc312f5b1a70fcfbc1afe235d800cd
ExploitPatch
thread.gmane.org / gmane.comp.encryption.gpg.gnutls.devel/3351/focus=3361
thread.gmane.org / gmane.comp.security.oss.general/12127