CVE-2020-3837
HIGHCVE-2020-3837 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-06-27) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling. This issue is fixed in iOS 13.3.1 and iPadOS 13.3.1, macOS Catalina 10.15.3, tvOS 13.3.1, watchOS 6.1.2. An application…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-06-27. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-07-18.
- 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-2020-3837.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-3837 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling. This issue is fixed in iOS 13.3.1 and iPadOS 13.3.1, macOS Catalina 10.15.3, tvOS 13.3.1, watchOS 6.1.2. An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.
Affected Products
ipadosappleiphone osapplemac os xappletvosapplewatchosappleResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
iOS/macOS - Out-of-Bounds Timestamp Write in IOAccelCommandQueue2::processSegmentKernelCommand()
by Google Security Research · Feb 10, 2020
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2020-3837 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-3837 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.