dbcve.org
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system · Canonical

CVE-2020-24916

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2020-09-09
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 2.0.7 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
CGI implementation in Yaws web server versions 1.81 to 2.0.7 is vulnerable to OS command injection.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-78

User input reaches a shell or system command without being fully separated from the command itself, so an attacker can append their own instructions. Because these run with the application's privileges, it often means full control of the host. The lasting fix is to avoid the shell entirely — call APIs directly and pass arguments as data, never as concatenated strings.

General guidance for the os command injection class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 18.04
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 9.0= 10.0
YawsApplication
Affected:>= 1.81, <= 2.0.7

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 2.0.7
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

Yaws version 2.0.8 or later (any stable release beyond 2.0.7)

  1. 1. Identify the current Yaws installation version using 'yaws --version' or checking your package manager
  2. 2. For Debian/Ubuntu systems: Run 'apt update' to refresh package lists
  3. 3. For Debian/Ubuntu systems: Run 'apt install yaws' to upgrade to the latest available version in the repository
  4. 4. Alternatively, for source installations: Clone the Yaws repository from https://github.com/erlyaws/yaws and checkout a tag newer than 2.0.7 (such as 2.0.8 or later)
  5. 5. Rebuild and reinstall Yaws following the build instructions in the repository
  6. 6. Restart the Yaws web server service to apply the updated binary
  7. 7. Verify the new version is running using 'yaws --version'
Caveat Minor - this is a security patch upgrade; review release notes for any behavioral changes between 2.0.7 and the target version

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can identify the exact fixed release, upgrade, and verify it in staging — typical engagement from $3,550. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-24916 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

Get it on GitHub Scan in the browser

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-24916 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data