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Fencer Vulns
high 8.1

CVE-2020-1931 json

A command execution issue was found in Apache SpamAssassin prior to 3.4.3.

published 2020-01-30 6 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2020-12747

cvss
8.1
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
6.5%
EPSS 6.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 93%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A command execution issue was found in Apache SpamAssassin prior to 3.4.3. Carefully crafted nefarious Configuration (.cf) files can be configured to run system commands similar to CVE-2018-11805. This issue is less stealthy and attempts to exploit the issue will throw warnings. Thanks to Damian Lukowski at credativ for reporting the issue ethically. With this bug unpatched, exploits can be injected in a number of scenarios though doing so remotely is difficult. In addition to upgrading to SA 3.4.4, we again recommend that users should only use update channels or 3rd party .cf files from trusted places.

Patch / fix

  • apache spamassassin 3.4.3
  • spamassassin Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.4.4~rc1-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-1931

  • spamassassin Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 3.4.2-0ubuntu0.16.04.3
  • spamassassin Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 3.4.2-0ubuntu0.18.04.3
  • spamassassin Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 3.4.2-0ubuntu0.14.04.1+esm2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2020-1931

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

  • spamassassin RHEL 8 3.4.2-10.el8

red hat advisories RHSA-2020:4625

  • spamassassin SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 3.4.2-7.9.1
  • spamassassin SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP1, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP1 3.4.2-12.5.1
  • spamassassin SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES for SAP 12 SP3 +14 more 3.4.2-44.8.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2020:0813-1SUSE-SU-2020:0811-1SUSE-SU-2020:0810-1

  • spamassassin openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.4.6-71.3
  • spamassassin openSUSE Leap 15.1 3.4.2-lp151.8.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11395-1openSUSE-SU-2020:0446-1

  • spamassassin Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +12 more 3.4.4-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2020-1931

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org 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-2020-1931 updated cvss 6.7

spamassassin: command injection via crafted configuration file

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 spamassassin Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 spamassassin
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 spamassassin
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 8) spamassassin 3.4.2-10.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:4625

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

6.46% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 93% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 8.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/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

  • Apache Software Foundation Apache SpamAssassin

Classification

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

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.