CVE-2019-18659

MEDIUM

Wireless Emergency Alerts Protocol - Presidential Alert Spoofing

Title source: manual
STIX 2.1

Description

The Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) protocol allows remote attackers to spoof a Presidential Alert because cryptographic authentication is not used, as demonstrated by MessageIdentifier 4370 in LTE System Information Block 12 (aka SIB12). NOTE: testing inside an RF-isolated shield box suggested that all LTE phones are affected by design (e.g., use of Android versus iOS does not matter); testing in an open RF environment is, of course, contraindicated.

References (1)

Core 1
Core References
Third Party Advisory x_refsource_misc
https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3326082

Scores

CVSS v3 5.3
EPSS 0.0098
EPSS Percentile 57.6%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Details

CWE
CWE-290
Status published
Products (1)
ready/wireless_emergency_alerts
Published Nov 02, 2019
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026