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Fencer Intel
medium 5.3

CVE-2020-12801 json

Crash-recovered MSOffice encrypted documents defaulted to not to using encryption on next save

published 6y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2020-5084

cvss
5.3
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.3%
EPSS 1.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 70%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

If LibreOffice has an encrypted document open and crashes, that document is auto-saved encrypted. On restart, LibreOffice offers to restore the document and prompts for the password to decrypt it. If the recovery is successful, and if the file format of the recovered document was not LibreOffice's default ODF file format, then affected versions of LibreOffice default that subsequent saves of the document are unencrypted. This may lead to a user accidentally saving a MSOffice file format document unencrypted while believing it to be encrypted. This issue affects: LibreOffice 6-3 series versions prior to 6.3.6; 6-4 series versions prior to 6.4.3.

Patch / fix

  • The Document Foundation LibreOffice 6.3.6, 6.4.3
  • libreoffice Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1:6.4.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-12801

  • libreoffice Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 1:6.0.7-0ubuntu0.18.04.12

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2020-12801

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • libreoffice SLE Workstation Extension 12 SP5, SLE Workstation Extension 12 SP4, SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 +1 more 6.4.4.2-43.65.5
  • libreoffice SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP1 6.4.4.2-8.19.4

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2020:1731-1SUSE-SU-2020:1530-1

  • libreoffice openSUSE Tumbleweed 7.1.5.2-3.13
  • libreoffice openSUSE Leap 15.1 6.4.4.2-lp151.3.15.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10983-1openSUSE-SU-2020:0786-1

  • libreoffice Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +7 more 6.4.3.2-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2020-12801

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Is CVE-2020-12801 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2020-12801 updated cvss 4.4

libreoffice: crash recovered MSOffice encrypted documents defaulted to not to using encryption on next save

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 autocorr-af, autocorr-bg, autocorr-ca, autocorr-cs, autocorr-da, autocorr-de, +60 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 autocorr-af, autocorr-bg, autocorr-ca, autocorr-cs, autocorr-da, autocorr-de, +105 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 autocorr-af, autocorr-bg, autocorr-ca, autocorr-cs, autocorr-da, autocorr-de, +98 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 autocorr-af, autocorr-bg, autocorr-ca, autocorr-cs, autocorr-da, autocorr-de, +101 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2y ago

Exploit prediction

1.29% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 70% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Affected products

  • The Document Foundation LibreOffice

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-311 Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data
  • CWE-312 Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.