Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
medium 5.9

CVE-2020-13920 json

Improper Authentication in Apache ActiveMQ

published 2020-09-10 6 y ago modified 2026-09-08 2 mo ago also BIT-activemq-2020-13920 , EUVD-2022-1253 , GHSA-xgrx-xpv2-6vp4

cvss
5.9
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.5%
EPSS 4.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 91%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Apache ActiveMQ uses LocateRegistry.createRegistry() to create the JMX RMI registry and binds the server to the "jmxrmi" entry. It is possible to connect to the registry without authentication and call the rebind method to rebind jmxrmi to something else. If an attacker creates another server to proxy the original, and bound that, he effectively becomes a man in the middle and is able to intercept the credentials when an user connects. Upgrade to Apache ActiveMQ 5.15.12.

Patch / fix

  • maven org.apache.activemq:activemq-parent 5.15.12
  • bitnami activemq 5.15.12
  • apache activemq 5.15.12
  • activemq Debian 13, Debian 12 5.16.0-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-13920

  • activemq Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 5.13.2+dfsg-2ubuntu0.1~esm1
  • activemq Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS 5.15.8-2~18.04.1~esm1
  • activemq Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS 5.15.11-1ubuntu0.1~esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2020-13920

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

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-2020-13920 updated cvss 5.9

activemq: improper authentication allows MITM attack

  • Red Hat Integration Camel Quarkus 1 activemq activemq
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat JBoss A-MQ 6 activemq activemq Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Continuous Delivery activemq-artemis activemq-artemis Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6 activemq activemq Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works 6 activemq activemq
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Fuse 7.9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:3140
  • Red Hat Integration
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:3205
  • Red Hat Integration Camel Quarkus 2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:3207
  • Red Hat AMQ Broker 7 mqtt-client mqtt-client Red Hat Decision Manager 7 activemq-artemis activemq-artemis Red Hat JBoss Data Grid 7 activemq-artemis activemq-artemis Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7 activemq-artemis activemq-artemis Red Hat Process Automation 7 activemq-artemis activemq-artemis Red Hat Single Sign-On 7 activemq-artemis activemq-artemis
    +1 more products
    Red Hat Virtualization 4 eap7-activemq-artemis
    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

Exploit prediction

4.54% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 91% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
GitHub 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
OSV 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
maven org.apache.activemq:activemq-parent
<5.15.12
5.15.12
bitnami activemq
<5.15.12
5.15.12

Affected products

  • n/a Apache ActiveMQ

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-306 Missing Authentication for Critical Functionality

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns 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.