Photoshop 2020Application · Adobe

CVE-2020-3775

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2020-03-25
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 21.1 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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
Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 versions 20.0.8 and earlier, and Photoshop 2020 versions 21.1 and earlier have a buffer errors vulnerability. Successful exploitation could lead to arbitrary code execution.

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 · moderate confidence

Buffer errors vulnerability in Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 (20.0.8 and earlier) and Photoshop 2020 (21.1 and earlier) allowing arbitrary code execution. Likely a memory corruption issue such as heap or stack buffer overflow when processing malformed image data.

MitigationApply Adobe security updates to upgrade to patched Photoshop versions. Deploy via enterprise patch management or manual update to all affected installations.

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
Photoshop 2020Application
Affected:>= 21.0, <= 21.1
Photoshop CcApplication
Affected:>= 20.0, <= 20.0.8

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
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

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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check installed Photoshop 2020 version
    Open Photoshop 2020, go to Help > About Photoshop, or check the version in the application properties. On Windows, you can also check in Programs and Features. On macOS, check in Applications folder Get Info.
    Affected if Version is between 21.0 and 21.1 inclusive
  2. Check installed Photoshop CC 2019 version
    Open Photoshop CC 2019, go to Help > About Photoshop, or check the version in the application properties. On Windows, you can also check in Programs and Features. On macOS, check in Applications folder Get Info.
    Affected if Version is between 20.0 and 20.0.8 inclusive
  3. Verify affected version ranges
    Compare your installed version number against the affected ranges: Photoshop 2020 versions 21.0 through 21.1, and Photoshop CC 2019 versions 20.0 through 20.0.8
    Affected if Your installed version falls within these ranges and no security patch has been applied

You are affected if you have Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 versions 20.0 to 20.0.8 or Photoshop 2020 versions 21.0 to 21.1 installed and have not applied the corresponding security update.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 21.1
Interim mitigation

Apply Adobe security updates to upgrade to patched Photoshop versions. Deploy via enterprise patch management or manual update to all affected installations.

Recommended fix High confidence

Photoshop 2020 version 21.2.0+ or Photoshop CC 2019 version 20.0.9+

  1. Close Adobe Photoshop completely before updating
  2. Open Adobe Creative Cloud desktop application or navigate to helpx.adobe.com/photoshop
  3. Check your current Photoshop version via Help > About Photoshop in the application
  4. For Photoshop 2020 users: Upgrade to version 21.2.0 or later (the security update that addresses CVE-2020-3775)
  5. For Photoshop CC 2019 users: Upgrade to version 20.0.9 or later which contains the security patch
  6. Restart Photoshop after installation and verify the version number matches the fixed release
Caveat Standard minor upgrade risks apply - verify critical third-party plugins/plugins are compatible with the new version before production use

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

Fix this in Photoshop 2020 Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation3.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
8.0 hours of engineering $1,420
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,272.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

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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-2020-3775 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data