A vulnerability in the Pulse Secure Desktop Client < 9.1R9 has Remote Code Execution (RCE) if users can be convinced to connect to a malici…

published 2020-10-28 6 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2020-29124

cvss: 8.8; version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 2.1%; EPSS 2.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 82%
public exploits: 0; none known

A vulnerability in the Pulse Secure Desktop Client < 9.1R9 has Remote Code Execution (RCE) if users can be convinced to connect to a malicious server. This vulnerability only affects Windows PDC.To improve the security of connections between Pulse clients and Pulse Connect Secure, see below recommendation(s):Disable Dynamic certificate trust for PDC.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1

pulsesecure pulse_secure_desktop_client 9.1

Exploit prediction

2.12% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 82% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	3.1	8.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	6.8	AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected products

n/a Pulse Secure Desktop Client

Classification

Weakness

CWE-23 Relative Path Traversal
CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory

References

kb.pulsesecure.net /articles/Pulse_Security_Advisories/SA44601
vendor-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2020-8254
NVD CVE-2020-8254

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.

Summary