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HIGH severity

CVE-2020-15115 — v3

HIGH

CVE-2020-15115 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-521 vulnerability in go.etcd.io/etcd/client/v3. A fix is available for go.etcd.io/etcd/client/v3 — see the affected versions and patch details below.

etcd has no minimum password length

Also known asGHSA-4993-m7g5-r9hh
Published
Aug 6, 2020
Updated
Jul 8, 2026
Affected
2 pkgs
Patched
2 / 2
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Sep 24, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
1.3%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs70th percentile — riskier than 70% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2020-15115 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 378,567 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.

Real-World Exposure

2 pkgs affected
🐹go.etcd.io/etcd/client/v3🐹go.etcd.io/etcd/client/v3

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

Vulnerability type

Access Control

Workarounds

The etcdctl and etcd API do not enforce a specific password length during user creation or user password update operations. It is the responsibility of the administrator to enforce these requirements.

Detail

etcd does not perform any password length validation, which allows for very short passwords, such as those with a length of one. This may allow an attacker to guess or brute-force users’ passwords with little computational effort.

References

Find out more on this vulnerability in the security audit report

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

Affected Packages

2 total 2 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐹Gogo.etcd.io/etcd/client/v3≥ 3.4.0&&< 3.4.103.4.10go get go.etcd.io/etcd/client/v3@v3.4.10
🐹Gogo.etcd.io/etcd/client/v3all versions3.3.23go get go.etcd.io/etcd/client/v3@v3.3.23

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for go.etcd.io/etcd/client/v3, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update go.etcd.io/etcd/client/v3 to 3.4.10 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-15115 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. 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.

  4. How O3 protects you

    O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2020-15115 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.

Tailored to CVE-2020-15115. 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.

Red HatModerate

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (RHOCP) doesn't use etcd role-based access control (rbac), instead of that, OpenShift OAuth authentication is used. Therefore, RHOCP is not affected by this vulnerability. A similar configuration is in place in Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) as etcd does not use a password for…

ProductFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat OpenStack Platform 16.1etcd-0:3.3.23-1.el8ostRHSA-2021:0916

Frequently Asked Questions

### Vulnerability type Access Control ### Workarounds The etcdctl and etcd API do not enforce a specific password length during user creation or user password update operations. [It is the responsibility of the administrator to enforce these requirements](https://github.com/etcd-io/etcd/blob/master/Documentation/op-guide/authentication.md#notes-on-password-strength). ### Detail etcd does not perform any password length validation, which allows for very short passwords, such as those with a length of one. This may allow an attacker to guess or brute-force users’ passwords with little computat
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2020-15115 in your dependencies?

O3 Security finds CVE-2020-15115 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works
CVE-2020-15115: v3 (High 7.5) | O3 Security