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Photoshop 2020Application · Adobe

CVE-2020-3790

HIGH · 8.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2020-03-25
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 21.1 or later.
See remediation →
95/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges

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 memory corruption 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 · high confidence

Memory corruption vulnerability in Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 (20.0.8 and earlier) and Photoshop 2020 (21.1 and earlier) that allows arbitrary code execution when processing specially crafted files.

MitigationUpdate Adobe Photoshop to version 20.0.9 or later for CC 2019, and version 21.1.1 or later for Photoshop 2020.

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
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/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. Confirm Adobe Photoshop is installed
    On Windows, open Programs and Features or check for Photoshop in C:\Program Files\Adobe. On macOS, check /Applications for Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 or Adobe Photoshop 2020.
    Affected if Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 or Photoshop 2020 is present on the system
  2. Identify the installed Photoshop version
    Open Photoshop and go to Help > About Adobe Photoshop. The version number appears in the title bar of the about dialog. On Windows, you can also check Add/Remove Programs or the registry under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Photoshop for the Version key.
    Affected if The displayed version falls within an affected release line
  3. Compare version against affected ranges
    For Photoshop 2020, check if version is 21.0, 21.0.x, or 21.1 (any point release). For Photoshop CC 2019, check if version is 20.0 through 20.0.8 inclusive.
    Affected if Version is 21.0 to 21.1 for Photoshop 2020, or 20.0 to 20.0.8 for Photoshop CC 2019

User is affected if Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 version 20.0 through 20.0.8 or Photoshop 2020 version 21.0 through 21.1 is installed.

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.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 21.1
Interim mitigation

Update Adobe Photoshop to version 20.0.9 or later for CC 2019, and version 21.1.1 or later for Photoshop 2020.

Fix this in Photoshop 2020 Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
9.0 hours of engineering $1,600
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,560.

Scan for this in your stack

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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-2020-3790 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