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Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2020-15778 in the critical feed json

scp in OpenSSH through 8.3p1 allows command injection in the scp.c toremote function, as demonstrated by backtick characters in the destina…

published 6y ago modified 26d ago also EUVD-2020-7762

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
13.7%
EPSS 13.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 96%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

scp in OpenSSH through 8.3p1 allows command injection in the scp.c toremote function, as demonstrated by backtick characters in the destination argument. NOTE: the vendor reportedly has stated that they intentionally omit validation of "anomalous argument transfers" because that could "stand a great chance of breaking existing workflows."

Patch / fix

  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP V3.1.5
  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP V3.1.5
  • Siemens SIPLUS S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP V3.1.5
  • openssh RHEL 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-cavs RHEL 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-ldap RHEL 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-keycat RHEL 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-server RHEL 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-askpass RHEL 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-clients RHEL 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • pam_ssh_agent_auth RHEL 8 0.10.3-7.24.el8

red hat advisories RHSA-2024:3166

  • openssh AlmaLinux 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-cavs AlmaLinux 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-ldap AlmaLinux 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-keycat AlmaLinux 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-server AlmaLinux 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-askpass AlmaLinux 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • openssh-clients AlmaLinux 8 8.0p1-24.el8
  • pam_ssh_agent_auth AlmaLinux 8 0.10.3-7.24.el8

almalinux advisories ALSA-2024:3166

  • openssh Rocky Linux 8 8.0p1-24.el8

rocky linux advisories RLSA-2024:3166

  • openssh Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +3 more 8.3_p1-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2020-15778

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-2020-15778 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.

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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-2020-15778 updated cvss 4.1

openssh: scp allows command injection when using backtick characters in the destination argument

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 openssh Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 openssh, openssh-ldap, openssh-server, openssh-askpass, openssh-clients, pam_ssh_agent_auth
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 openssh, openssh-cavs, openssh-ldap, openssh-keycat, openssh-server, openssh-askpass, +3 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 8) openssh-askpass 8.0p1-24.el8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 8) openssh 8.0p1-24.el8, openssh-cavs 8.0p1-24.el8, openssh-ldap 8.0p1-24.el8, openssh-keycat 8.0p1-24.el8, openssh-server 8.0p1-24.el8, openssh-clients 8.0p1-24.el8, +1 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2024:3166

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 ICSA-23-348-10 updated cvss 7.8

Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500

  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4AX00-1AB0) >= 3.1.0, < 3.1.5 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4AX00-1AC0) >= 3.1.0, < 3.1.5 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4FX00-1AB0) >= 3.1.0, < 3.1.5 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4FX00-1AC0) >= 3.1.0, < 3.1.5 Siemens SIPLUS S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6AG1518-4AX00-4AC0) >= 3.1.0, < 3.1.5
    affected: fixed in V3.1.5, mitigation support.industry.siemens.com

Facts from CISA's republication of the vendor's own advisory (CSAF); the linked advisory is the authoritative source. CISA notification · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
2y ago

Exploit prediction

13.68% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 96% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/cpandya2909/CVE-2020-15778/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected products

  • openbsd openssh
  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP
  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP
  • Siemens SIPLUS S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command

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.