CVE-2020-7599 — plugin-publish-plugin
MEDIUMCVE-2020-7599 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-532 vulnerability in com.gradle.publish:plugin-publish-plugin. A fix is available for com.gradle.publish:plugin-publish-plugin — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exposure of Sensitive Information in Gradle publish 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-2020-7599 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 377,636 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
com.gradle.publish:plugin-publish-plugin☕com.gradle.plugin-publish:com.gradle.plugin-publish.gradle.pluginReal-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
All versions of com.gradle.plugin-publish before 0.11.0 are vulnerable to Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File. When a plugin author publishes a Gradle plugin while running Gradle with the --info log level flag, the Gradle Logger logs an AWS pre-signed URL. If this build log is publicly visible (as it is in many popular public CI systems like TravisCI) this AWS pre-signed URL would allow a malicious actor to replace a recently uploaded plugin with their own.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | com.gradle.publish:plugin-publish-plugin | all versions | 0.11.0com.gradle.publish:plugin-publish-plugin:0.11.0 |
| ☕Maven | com.gradle.plugin-publish:com.gradle.plugin-publish.gradle.plugin | all versions | 0.11.0com.gradle.plugin-publish:com.gradle.plugin-publish.gradle.plugin:0.11.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for com.gradle.publish:plugin-publish-plugin, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update com.gradle.publish:plugin-publish-plugin to 0.11.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-7599 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.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2020-7599 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2020-7599. 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-2020-7599 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2020-7599 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.