FedoraOperating system · Fedoraproject
CVE-2020-26880
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 · uneditedSympa through 6.2.57b.2 allows a local privilege escalation from the sympa user account to full root access by modifying the sympa.conf configuration file (which is owned by sympa) and parsing it through the setuid sympa_newaliases-wrapper executable.
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 · high confidenceSympa through 6.2.57b.2 allows local privilege escalation from the sympa user account to root by modifying the sympath.conf configuration file (which is owned by the sympa user) and triggering its parsing through the setuid sympath_newaliases-wrapper executable.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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
FedoraOperating system
= 32= 33= 34
Debian LinuxOperating system
= 9.0<= 6.2.56= 6.2.57CVSS 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
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check if Sympa is installedRun 'sympa --version' or check for the presence of Sympa directories (commonly in /etc/sympa or /var/lib/sympa)Affected if Sympa is not installed or version is higher than 6.2.57 (note: versions 6.2.56 and below, and exactly 6.2.57, are affected)
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Locate the sympath.conf configuration fileSearch for 'sympath.conf' in common locations like /etc/sympa/ or check the Sympa documentation for your installation pathAffected if The sympath.conf file exists and is owned by or writable by the 'sympa' user (this allows the attacker to modify it)
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Check sympath.conf file permissionsRun 'ls -la <path_to_sympath.conf>' to inspect ownership and permissionsAffected if The file is owned by the sympa user or writable by non-root users (the privilege escalation relies on the attacker modifying this file)
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Locate the sympath_newaliases-wrapper binarySearch for 'sympath_newaliases-wrapper' in the Sympa bin directory (commonly /usr/lib/sympa/bin/ or /usr/libexec/sympa/)Affected if The sympath_newaliases-wrapper executable exists on the system
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Check sympath_newaliases-wrapper setuid permissionsRun 'ls -la <path_to_sympath_newaliases-wrapper>' and look for 's' in the owner permissions (setuid bit)Affected if The binary has setuid root permissions (the 's' bit in owner permissions), which is required for the privilege escalation to succeed
A user is affected if they have Sympa version 6.2.57 or earlier installed, the sympath.conf file is writable by the sympa user, and the sympath_newaliases-wrapper binary has setuid root permissions enabled.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataRestrict write access to the Sympa configuration directory and review or remove unnecessary setuid privileges from the sympath_newaliases-wrapper binary.
Fix this in Fedora
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $5,120.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-26880 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-26880 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- 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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