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Fencer Intel
medium 6.7

CVE-2020-21583 json

An issue was discovered in hwclock.13-v2.27 allows attackers to gain escalated privlidges or execute arbitrary commands via the path parame…

published 3y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2020-14351

cvss
6.7
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 46%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

An issue was discovered in hwclock.13-v2.27 allows attackers to gain escalated privlidges or execute arbitrary commands via the path parameter when setting the date.

Patch / fix

  • kernel util-linux 2.27
  • util-linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.27-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-21583

Is CVE-2020-21583 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-2020-21583 updated cvss 6.4

util-linux: arbitrary commands execution via the path parameter

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 uuidd, libuuid, libblkid, libmount, util-linux
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 uuidd, libuuid, libblkid, libfdisk, libmount, util-linux, +3 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 uuidd, libuuid, libblkid, libfdisk, libmount, util-linux, +4 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
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
2y ago

Exploit prediction

0.55% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 46% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • bugs.debian.org https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=786804 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • packetstormsecurity.com https://packetstormsecurity.com/files/132061/hwclock-Privilege-Escalation.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 6.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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.