CVE-2020-8816 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.2) OS Command Injection vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-12-10) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. A fix is available — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-12-10. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-06-10.
- 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-2020-8816.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-8816 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
Pi-hole Web v4.3.2 (aka AdminLTE) allows Remote Code Execution by privileged dashboard users via a crafted DHCP static lease.
Affected Products
pi-holepi-holeResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Pi-hole 4.3.2 - Remote Code Execution (Authenticated)
by Luis Vacacas · Aug 4, 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`).
Fix
Upgrade the affected component to the fixed release for CVE-2020-8816, or apply your distribution's backported patch — distro builds are often patched at an older version number, so check your vendor's advisory rather than the upstream version alone.
Workarounds
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-8816 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.