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Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2020-17023 json

Visual Studio JSON Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

published 6y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2020-8980

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.6%
EPSS 4.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 91%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

<p>A remote code execution vulnerability exists in Visual Studio Code when a user is tricked into opening a malicious 'package.json' file. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could run arbitrary code in the context of the current user. If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker could take control of the affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.</p> <p>To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need to convince a target to clone a repository and open it in Visual Studio Code. Attacker-specified code would execute when the target opens the malicious 'package.json' file.</p> <p>The update address the vulnerability by modifying the way Visual Studio Code handles JSON files.</p>

Patch / fix

Is CVE-2020-17023 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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Exploit prediction

4.62% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 91% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:P/RL:O/RC:C
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 9.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected products

  • Microsoft Visual Studio Code

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.