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CISA KEV · ACTIVELY EXPLOITED
HIGH severity

CVE-2020-5741

HIGH

CVE-2020-5741 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.2) Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-03-10) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.

Deserialization of Untrusted Data in Plex Media Server on Windows allows a remote, authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary Python code.

Published
Updated
Affected
1 product
Patched
See advisory
Exploits
4 known
Exploitation data as of Oct 23, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, CISA KEV, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

Actively exploited in the wild

  • Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-03-10. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-03-31.
  • 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-2020-5741.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
72.8%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Very High Risk-0.19%
Lower risk than most CVEs99th percentile — riskier than 99% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
23.9%44.0%64.1%84.3%38.4%72.8%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2020-5741 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

Deserialization of Untrusted Data in Plex Media Server on Windows allows a remote, authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary Python code.

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations
Application
media serverplex
< 1.19.3
range
Exploits & PoCs
4

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

Deserialization of Untrusted Data in Plex Media Server on Windows allows…

tenable.comNVDJul 2020

Deserialization of Untrusted Data in Plex Media Server on Windows allows…

github.comMetasploitAug 2021

Deserialization of Untrusted Data in Plex Media Server on Windows allows…

packetstormsecurity.comNVDDec 2021

Deserialization of Untrusted Data in Plex Media Server on Windows allows…

cisa.govCISAMar 2023

Detection & mitigation playbook

Vulnerability

  1. Detect

    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`).

  2. Remediation status

    No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2020-5741 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.

  3. Mitigate without a patch

    Do not deserialise data from untrusted sources: where the format allows it, restrict deserialisation to an explicit allowlist of expected types, and prefer a data-only format (JSON, Protobuf) over one that can reconstruct arbitrary objects until you can upgrade.

Frequently Asked Questions

Deserialization of Untrusted Data in Plex Media Server on Windows allows a remote, authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary Python code.
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CVE-2020-5741: Deserialization (High 7.2, KEV)