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Enterprise LinuxOperating system · Redhat

CVE-2020-2604

HIGH · 8.1 CVSS v3.1 Published 2020-01-15
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 13.0.1 or later.
See remediation →
90/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
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
Vulnerability in the Java SE, Java SE Embedded product of Oracle Java SE (component: Serialization). Supported versions that are affected are Java SE: 7u241, 8u231, 11.0.5 and 13.0.1; Java SE Embedded: 8u231. Difficult to exploit vulnerability allows unauthenticated attacker with network access via multiple protocols to compromise Java SE, Java SE Embedded. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in takeover of Java SE, Java SE Embedded. Note: This vulnerability applies to Java deployments, typically in clients running sandboxed Java Web Start applications or sandboxed Java applets (in Java SE 8), that load and run untrusted code (e.g., code that comes from the internet) and rely on the Java sandbox for security. This vulnerability can also be exploited by using APIs in the specified Component, e.g., through a web service which supplies data to the APIs. CVSS v3.0 Base Score 8.1 (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).

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-502

The application rebuilds objects from attacker-supplied serialized data, and the act of rebuilding can trigger dangerous code paths. In many runtimes this leads straight to remote code execution. The durable fix is to avoid deserializing untrusted input — or to use a strict, type-limited format with integrity checks.

General guidance for the deserialization of untrusted data 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
Enterprise LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 8.0
Enterprise Linux DesktopOperating system
Affected:= 6.0= 7.0
Enterprise Linux EusOperating system
Affected:= 7.7= 8.1
Enterprise Linux ServerOperating system
Affected:= 6.0= 7.0
Enterprise Linux Server AusOperating system
Affected:= 7.7
Enterprise Linux Server TusOperating system
Affected:= 7.7
Enterprise Linux WorkstationOperating system
Affected:= 6.0= 7.0
OpenjdkApplication
Affected:>= 11, <= 11.0.5>= 13, <= 13.0.1= 7= 8

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
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/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.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 13.0.1
Vendor patch www.oracle.com →
We can identify the exact fixed release, upgrade, and verify it in staging — typical engagement from $3,200. Get the upgrade done

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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-2020-2604 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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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
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