CVE-2020-16123 - CVE House
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Status published Medium CVE-2020-16123

Bypass of snapd pulseaudio restrictions

Vulnerability Description

An Ubuntu-specific patch in PulseAudio created a race condition where the snap policy module would fail to identify a client connection from a snap as coming from a snap if SCM_CREDENTIALS were missing, allowing the snap to connect to PulseAudio without proper confinement. This could be exploited by an attacker to expose sensitive information. Fixed in 1:13.99.3-1ubuntu2, 1:13.99.2-1ubuntu2.1, 1:13.99.1-1ubuntu3.8, 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.11, and 1:8.0-0ubuntu3.15.

Impact Analysis

Refer to official advisory for detailed impact metrics.

Remediation

Ensure systems are updated to the latest vendor-supplied patch levels.

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Credits & Attribution

The following person or organization is credited with identifying this vulnerability, as recorded in the NVD database:

  • James Henstridge

References

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Affected Vendor

Affected Software

pulseaudio
Vulnerable Versions:
1:13.99.3-1, 1:13.99.2-1, 1:13.99.1-1, 1:11.1-1, 1:8.0-0

Timeline

Official Publish: December 3rd, 2020
Last Modified: September 16th, 2024
Added to House: July 21st, 2026

CVSS Vectors

V3: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Weaknesses (CWE)

CWE-362

MITRE ATT&CK TTPs

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
Privilege Escalation
T1574 Hijack Execution Flow
Persistence
T1565 Data Manipulation
Impact
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service
Impact
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application
Initial Access