CVE-2020-1938

CRITICAL
9.8
CVSS Score
Published: February 24, 2020 at 09:19 PM UTC
Updated: August 25, 2026 at 04:40 PM UTC
21 products affected across 7 vendorsDebian LinuxFedoraLeap

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Severity
CRITICAL9.8
Exploitation
CISA KEV
Exploit prediction
EPSS 99%
SSVC
Active

Actively Exploited

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog

EPSS Score99.3%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) estimates a 99.3% chance this CVE is exploited in the wild within the next 30 days — higher than 100% of all CVEs. It complements CVSS: a high EPSS on a mid-severity CVE can still be urgent.

Apache Tomcat treats Apache JServ Protocol (AJP) connections as having higher trust than, for example, a similar HTTP connection. If such connections are available to an attacker, they can be exploited.

Required Action
Apply updates per vendor instructions.
Ransomware Use
Unknown
Added to KEV
Mar 3, 2022
Remediation Due
Mar 17, 2022
1684 days overdue

Description

When using the Apache JServ Protocol (AJP), care must be taken when trusting incoming connections to Apache Tomcat. Tomcat treats AJP connections as having higher trust than, for example, a similar HTTP connection. If such connections are available to an attacker, they can be exploited in ways that may be surprising. In Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.0.30, 8.5.0 to 8.5.50 and 7.0.0 to 7.0.99, Tomcat shipped with an AJP Connector enabled by default that listened on all configured IP addresses. It was expected (and recommended in the security guide) that this Connector would be disabled if not required. This vulnerability report identified a mechanism that allowed: - returning arbitrary files from anywhere in the web application - processing any file in the web application as a JSP Further, if the web application allowed file upload and stored those files within the web application (or the attacker was able to control the content of the web application by some other means) then this, along with the ability to process a file as a JSP, made remote code execution possible. It is important to note that mitigation is only required if an AJP port is accessible to untrusted users. Users wishing to take a defence-in-depth approach and block the vector that permits returning arbitrary files and execution as JSP may upgrade to Apache Tomcat 9.0.31, 8.5.51 or 7.0.100 or later. A number of changes were made to the default AJP Connector configuration in 9.0.31 to harden the default configuration. It is likely that users upgrading to 9.0.31, 8.5.51 or 7.0.100 or later will need to make small changes to their configurations.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v ≤ 9.0.0.307.0.0 ≤ v ≤ 7.0.997.0.0 ≤ v < 7.0.1008.5.0 ≤ v ≤ 8.5.508.5.0 ≤ v < 8.5.519.0.0 ≤ v < 9.0.31
Affected range stops below 7.0.100, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 8.5.51, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 9.0.31, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
v ≤ 5.2.58.38
3.0.0 ≤ v ≤ 3.1.3

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCActiveAutomatableTotal impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

9.8CRITICALCISA-ADP
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
NVD-CWE-Other

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