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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.8

CVE-2020-27637 json

The R programming language’s default package manager CRAN is affected by a path traversal vulnerability that can lead to server compromise.

published 2021-01-12 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2020-20144

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.3%
EPSS 2.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 83%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The R programming language’s default package manager CRAN is affected by a path traversal vulnerability that can lead to server compromise. This vulnerability affects packages installed via the R CMD install cli command or the install.packages() function from the interpreter. Update to version 4.0.3

Patch / fix

  • r-project cran 4.0.3
  • r-base Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.0.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-27637

  • r Arch Linux 4.0.3-1

arch linux advisories AVG-1436

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-2020-27637 updated cvss 7.3

R: code execution via malicious CRAN package

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    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

2.27% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 83% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • labs.bishopfox.com https://labs.bishopfox.com/advisories/cran-version-4.0.2 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 10.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory

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.