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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.3

CVE-2020-15708 json

Libvirt Service Arbitrary File Write Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

published 2020-11-06 6 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2020-7694

cvss
9.3
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 34%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Ubuntu's packaging of libvirt in 20.04 LTS created a control socket with world read and write permissions. An attacker could use this to overwrite arbitrary files or execute arbitrary code.

Patch / fix

  • Ubuntu libvirt 6.0.0-0ubuntu8.3
  • libvirt Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 6.0.0-0ubuntu8.3

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2020-15708

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

  • libvirt SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES 12 SP2-LTSS, SLES 12 SP2-BCL +1 more 2.0.0-27.64.1
  • libvirt SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES 12 SP3-LTSS, SLES 12 SP3-BCL +4 more 3.3.0-5.46.1
  • libvirt SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5, SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 5.1.0-13.19.1
  • libvirt SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES 12 SP4-LTSS, OpenStack Cloud Crowbar 9 +1 more 4.0.0-8.23.1
  • libvirt SLE Module for Server Applications 15 SP1, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP1 5.1.0-8.24.1
  • libvirt SLE Module for Server Applications 15 SP2, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP2 6.0.0-13.8.1
  • libvirt SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 4.0.0-9.35.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2020:3143-1SUSE-SU-2020:3095-1SUSE-SU-2020:3039-1SUSE-SU-2020:3038-1SUSE-SU-2020:3037-1SUSE-SU-2020:2970-1

  • libvirt openSUSE Tumbleweed 7.7.0-2.1
  • libvirt openSUSE Leap 15.1 5.1.0-lp151.7.10.1
  • libvirt openSUSE Leap 15.2 6.0.0-lp152.9.6.2

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11008-1openSUSE-SU-2020:1778-1openSUSE-SU-2020:1777-1

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-2020-15708 updated cvss 7.8

libvirt: incorrect permissions on the UNIX domain socket allows local attacker to escalate privileges

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 libvirt Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 libvirt, libvirt-client, libvirt-python, libvirt-lock-sanlock Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 libvirt, libvirt-nss, libvirt-libs, libvirt-admin, libvirt-client, libvirt-daemon, +24 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 libvirt, libvirt-nss, libvirt-libs, libvirt-admin, libvirt-client, libvirt-daemon, +22 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Advanced Virtualization libvirt, libvirt-nss, libvirt-libs, libvirt-admin, libvirt-client, libvirt-daemon, +22 more Red Hat Storage 3 libvirt-lock-sanlock
    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

0.40% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 34% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 9.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 4.6 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected products

  • Ubuntu libvirt

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-732 Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource

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.