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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.3

CVE-2020-36160 json

An issue was discovered in Veritas System Recovery before 21.2.

published 2021-01-06 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2020-23738

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 39%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

An issue was discovered in Veritas System Recovery before 21.2. On start-up, it loads the OpenSSL library from \usr\local\ssl. This library attempts to load the from \usr\local\ssl\openssl.cnf configuration file, which does not exist. By default, on Windows systems, users can create directories under C:\. A low privileged user can create a C:\usr\local\ssl\openssl.cnf configuration file to load a malicious OpenSSL engine, resulting in arbitrary code execution as SYSTEM when the service starts. This gives the attacker administrator access on the system, allowing the attacker (by default) to access all data and installed applications, etc. If the system is also an Active Directory domain controller, then this can affect the entire domain.

Patch / fix

  • veritas system_recovery 21.2

Exploit prediction

0.45% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 39% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 9.3 CVSS:3.1/AC:L/AV:L/A:H/C:H/I:H/PR:N/S:C/UI:N
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 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

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.