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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.8

CVE-2020-25412 json

com_line() in command.c in gnuplot 5.4 leads to an out-of-bounds-write from strncpy() that may lead to arbitrary code execution.

published 2020-09-16 6 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2020-18099

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.6%
EPSS 2.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 85%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

com_line() in command.c in gnuplot 5.4 leads to an out-of-bounds-write from strncpy() that may lead to arbitrary code execution.

Patch / fix

  • gnuplot Debian 14, Debian 13 6.0.0+dfsg1-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-25412

  • gnuplot Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS 5.2.8+dfsg1-2ubuntu0.1~esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2020-25412

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

  • gnuplot openSUSE Tumbleweed 5.4.2-1.3

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10800-1

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-2020-25412 updated cvss 7.8

gnuplot: out-of-bounds-write from strncpy() may lead to arbitrary code execution

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 gnuplot Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 gnuplot, emacs-gnuplot, gnuplot-latex, gnuplot-common, gnuplot-minimal, emacs-gnuplot-el Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 gnuplot, emacs-gnuplot, gnuplot-latex, gnuplot-common, gnuplot-minimal, emacs-gnuplot-el Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 gnuplot, gnuplot-common
    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

2.63% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 85% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • sourceforge.net https://sourceforge.net/p/gnuplot/bugs/2303/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness

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.