CVE-2020-14871 — Solaris
CRITICALCVE-2020-14871 is a critical-severity (CVSS 10) Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability in oracle solaris. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. A fix is available — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Vulnerability in the Oracle Solaris product of Oracle Systems (component: Pluggable authentication module). Supported versions that are affected are 10 and 11. Easily exploitable vulnerability…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-05-03.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2020-14871.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-14871 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Vulnerability in the Oracle Solaris product of Oracle Systems (component: Pluggable authentication module). Supported versions that are affected are 10 and 11. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows unauthenticated attacker with network access via multiple protocols to compromise Oracle Solaris. While the vulnerability is in Oracle Solaris, attacks may significantly impact additional products. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in takeover of Oracle Solaris. Note: This CVE is not exploitable for Solaris 11.1 and later releases, and ZFSSA 8.7 and later releases, thus the CVSS Base Score is 0.0. CVSS 3.1 Base Score 10.0 (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H).
Affected Products
solarisoracleResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Solaris SunSSH 11.0 x86 - libpam Remote Root (3)
by Nathaniel Singer · Jun 21, 2021
Solaris SunSSH 11.0 x86 - libpam Remote Root (2)
by legend · May 21, 2021
Solaris SunSSH 11.0 x86 - libpam Remote Root
by Hacker Fantastic · Dec 15, 2020
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every oracle solaris deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Fix
Apply the oracle solaris security patch or hotfix for CVE-2020-14871 on the affected version, following the vendor advisory for your exact build.
Workarounds
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-14871 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.