CVE-2020-4854
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 · uneditedIBM Spectrum Protect Plus 10.1.0 thorugh 10.1.6 contains hard-coded credentials, such as a password or cryptographic key, which it uses for its own inbound authentication, outbound communication to external components, or encryption of internal data. IBM X-Force ID: 190454.
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 analysisA password or key is baked into the source or binary, so anyone who obtains the code obtains the credential. These are trivially found once the software is distributed. Remediation means removing the secret, rotating it, and loading credentials from secured configuration at runtime.
General guidance for the hard-coded credentials 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>= 10.1.0, <= 10.1.6CVSS 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 · scopedIBM Spectrum Protect Plus 10.1.7 or later
- 1. Review the IBM support bulletin at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6367823 for complete vulnerability details and remediation instructions.
- 2. Plan an upgrade to IBM Spectrum Protect Plus version 10.1.7 or later, which contains the fix for this hard-coded credentials vulnerability.
- 3. Before upgrading, back up your current configuration and database to ensure data integrity.
- 4. Schedule a maintenance window as upgrades may require downtime.
- 5. Follow the standard IBM Spectrum Protect Plus upgrade procedure for your deployment type (standalone or cluster).
- 6. After upgrading, verify that the hard-coded credentials have been removed or changed from their default values.
- 7. Review and rotate any credentials that may have been exposed due to this vulnerability.
- 8. Validate that the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus services start correctly after the upgrade.
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-4854 — 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-2020-4854 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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