CVE-2020-1701 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-732 vulnerability in kubevirt.io/kubevirt. A fix is available for kubevirt.io/kubevirt — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Permissions bypass in KubeVirt
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-1701 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
kubevirt.io/kubevirtReal-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
A flaw was found in the KubeVirt main virt-handler versions before 0.26.0 regarding the access permissions of virt-handler. An attacker with access to create VMs could attach any secret within their namespace, allowing them to read the contents of that secret.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | kubevirt.io/kubevirt | all versions | 0.26.0go get kubevirt.io/kubevirt@v0.26.0 |
Affected Products
kubevirtkubevirtDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for kubevirt.io/kubevirt, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update kubevirt.io/kubevirt to 0.26.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-1701 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.
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.
This issue can only be resolved by applying updates. Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options don't meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2020-1701 (CC BY 4.0)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-1701 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.