Vulnerability Monitor

The vendors, products, and vulnerabilities you care about

CVE-2008-4989

The _gnutls_x509_verify_certificate function in lib/x509/verify.c in libgnutls in GnuTLS before 2.6.1 trusts certificate chains in which the last certificate is an arbitrary trusted, self-signed certificate, which allows man-in-the-middle attackers to insert a spoofed certificate for any Distinguished Name (DN).

Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.9, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network but requires specific conditions to be met without requiring user interaction and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts integrity (unauthorized modifications), for affected systems. Impacting 7 products from gnu, from fedoraproject, from canonical and 4 others, organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Originally identified in 2008, this vulnerability predates many modern security frameworks and practices. The vulnerability landscape of that era was characterized by different threat models and less mature defense mechanisms compared to contemporary standards.

Published

2008-11-13T01:00:01.177

Last Modified

2026-04-23T00:35:47.467

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 5.9 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

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

  • Access Vector: NETWORK
  • Access Complexity: MEDIUM
  • Authentication: NONE
  • Confidentiality Impact: NONE
  • Integrity Impact: PARTIAL
  • Availability Impact: NONE
Exploitability Score

8.6

Impact Score

2.9

Weaknesses
  • Type: Primary
    CWE-295
Affected Vendors & Products
Type Vendor Product Version/Range Vulnerable?
Application gnu gnutls < 2.6.1 Yes
Operating System fedoraproject fedora 8 Yes
Operating System fedoraproject fedora 9 Yes
Operating System canonical ubuntu_linux 6.06 Yes
Operating System canonical ubuntu_linux 7.10 Yes
Operating System canonical ubuntu_linux 8.04 Yes
Operating System canonical ubuntu_linux 8.10 Yes
Operating System debian debian_linux 4.0 Yes
Operating System opensuse opensuse ≤ 11.1 Yes
Operating System suse linux_enterprise 10.0 Yes
Operating System suse linux_enterprise 11.0 Yes
Operating System suse linux_enterprise_server 10 Yes
Operating System suse linux_enterprise_server 11 Yes
References

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For gnu's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.