CVE-2020-2197 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.3) Incorrect Default Permissions vulnerability in hudson.plugins:project-inheritance. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Missing permission check in Jenkins Project Inheritance Plugin
EPSS Exploitation Probability
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-2020-2197 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 377,166 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
hudson.plugins:project-inheritanceReal-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
Jenkins limits access to job configuration XML data (config.xml) to users with Job/ExtendedRead permission, typically implied by Job/Configure permission. Project Inheritance Plugin has several job inspection features, including the API URL /job/…/getConfigAsXML for its Inheritance Project job type that does something similar.
Project Inheritance Plugin 21.04.03 and earlier does not check permissions for this new endpoint, granting access to job configuration XML data to every user with Job/Read permission.
Additionally, the encrypted values of secrets stored in the job configuration are not redacted, as they would be by the config.xml API for users without Job/Configure permission.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | hudson.plugins:project-inheritance | all versions | No fix |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for hudson.plugins:project-inheritance, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Remediation status
No patched version of hudson.plugins:project-inheritance has shipped for CVE-2020-2197 yet. Where your build allows, override or pin the dependency away from the vulnerable range, and apply any maintainer-recommended mitigation.
Mitigate without a patch
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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2020-2197 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2020-2197. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-2197 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2020-2197 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.