CVE-2020-11979
HIGHCVE-2020-11979 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-379 vulnerability in org.apache.ant:ant. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2020-11979 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Code injection in Apache Ant
Real-World Exposure
org.apache.ant:antReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
As mitigation for CVE-2020-1945 Apache Ant 1.10.8 changed the permissions of temporary files it created so that only the current user was allowed to access them. Unfortunately the fixcrlf task deleted the temporary file and created a new one without said protection, effectively nullifying the effort. This would still allow an attacker to inject modified source files into the build process.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.apache.ant:ant | all versions | 1.10.9 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.ant:ant. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update org.apache.ant:ant to 1.10.9 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-11979 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2020-11979 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2020-11979. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
ant as shipped in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 is not affected by this flaw because this flaw is caused by the patch for CVE-2020-1945, however, it was never applied to ant as shipped in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, because the decision was made by Engineering to WONTFIX that flaw. In OpenShift Container Platform (OCP),…
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-11979 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2020-11979 across Maven dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.