CVE-2020-14339 Vulnerability Analysis & Exploit Details

CVE-2020-14339
Vulnerability Scoring

8.8
/10
Severe Risk

Cybersecurity professionals consider CVE-2020-14339 an immediate threat requiring urgent mitigation.

Attack Complexity Details

  • Attack Complexity: Low
    Exploits can be performed without significant complexity or special conditions.
  • Attack Vector: Local
    Vulnerability requires local system access.
  • Privileges Required: Low
    Some privileges are necessary to exploit the vulnerability.
  • Scope: Changed
    Successful exploitation can impact components beyond the vulnerable component.
  • User Interaction: None
    No user interaction is necessary for exploitation.

CVE-2020-14339 Details

Status: Analyzed

Last updated: 🕡 07 Nov 2022, 18:56 UTC
Originally published on: 🕔 03 Dec 2020, 17:15 UTC

Time between publication and last update: 704 days

CVSS Release: version 3

CVSS3 Source

nvd@nist.gov

CVSS3 Type

Primary

CVSS3 Vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVE-2020-14339 Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2020-14339: A flaw was found in libvirt, where it leaked a file descriptor for `/dev/mapper/control` into the QEMU process. This file descriptor allows for privileged operations to happen against the device-mapper on the host. This flaw allows a malicious guest user or process to perform operations outside of their standard permissions, potentially causing serious damage to the host operating system. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality, integrity, as well as system availability.

Assessing the Risk of CVE-2020-14339

Access Complexity Graph

The exploitability of CVE-2020-14339 depends on two key factors: attack complexity (the level of effort required to execute an exploit) and privileges required (the access level an attacker needs).

Exploitability Analysis for CVE-2020-14339

CVE-2020-14339 presents an accessible attack vector with minimal effort required. Restricting access controls and implementing security updates are critical to reducing exploitation risks.

Understanding AC and PR

A lower complexity and fewer privilege requirements make exploitation easier. Security teams should evaluate these aspects to determine the urgency of mitigation strategies, such as patch management and access control policies.

Attack Complexity (AC) measures the difficulty in executing an exploit. A high AC means that specific conditions must be met, making an attack more challenging, while a low AC means the vulnerability can be exploited with minimal effort.

Privileges Required (PR) determine the level of system access necessary for an attack. Vulnerabilities requiring no privileges are more accessible to attackers, whereas high privilege requirements limit exploitation to authorized users with elevated access.

CVSS Score Breakdown Chart

Above is the CVSS Sub-score Breakdown for CVE-2020-14339, illustrating how Base, Impact, and Exploitability factors combine to form the overall severity rating. A higher sub-score typically indicates a more severe or easier-to-exploit vulnerability.

CIA Impact Analysis

Below is the Impact Analysis for CVE-2020-14339, showing how Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability might be affected if the vulnerability is exploited. Higher values usually signal greater potential damage.

  • Confidentiality: High
    Exploiting CVE-2020-14339 can result in unauthorized access to sensitive data, severely compromising data privacy.
  • Integrity: High
    CVE-2020-14339 could allow unauthorized modifications to data, potentially affecting system reliability and trust.
  • Availability: High
    CVE-2020-14339 can disrupt system operations, potentially causing complete denial of service (DoS).

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

The EPSS score estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the near future.

EPSS Score: 0.044% (probability of exploit)

EPSS Percentile: 15.33% (lower percentile = lower relative risk)
This vulnerability is less risky than approximately 84.67% of others.

CVE-2020-14339 References

External References

CWE Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-772

CAPEC Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification

  • HTTP DoS CAPEC-469 An attacker performs flooding at the HTTP level to bring down only a particular web application rather than anything listening on a TCP/IP connection. This denial of service attack requires substantially fewer packets to be sent which makes DoS harder to detect. This is an equivalent of SYN flood in HTTP. The idea is to keep the HTTP session alive indefinitely and then repeat that hundreds of times. This attack targets resource depletion weaknesses in web server software. The web server will wait to attacker's responses on the initiated HTTP sessions while the connection threads are being exhausted.

Vulnerable Configurations

  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.2.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.2.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.2.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.2.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.2.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.2.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.3.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.3.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.3.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.3.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.4.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.4.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.4.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.4.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.5.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.5.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.5.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.5.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.5.0:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.5.0:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.6.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.6.0:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.6.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:redhat:libvirt:6.6.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8.0:*:*:*:advanced_virtualization:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8.0:*:*:*:advanced_virtualization:*:*:*

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