CVE-2020-1712

Publication date 5 February 2020

Last updated 18 August 2025

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

A heap use-after-free vulnerability was found in systemd before version v245-rc1, where asynchronous Polkit queries are performed while handling dbus messages. A local unprivileged attacker can abuse this flaw to crash systemd services or potentially execute code and elevate their privileges, by sending specially crafted dbus messages.

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
systemd	26.04 LTS resolute	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	25.10 questing	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	25.04 plucky	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	24.10 oracular	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	24.04 LTS noble	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	23.10 mantic	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	23.04 lunar	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	22.10 kinetic	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	22.04 LTS jammy	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	21.10 impish	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	21.04 hirsute	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	20.10 groovy	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	20.04 LTS focal	Fixed 244.1-0ubuntu3
	19.10 eoan	Fixed 242-7ubuntu3.6
	18.04 LTS bionic	Fixed 237-3ubuntu10.38
	16.04 LTS xenial	Fixed 229-4ubuntu21.27
	14.04 LTS trusty	Vulnerable

Patch details

For informational purposes only. We recommend not to cherry-pick updates. How can I get the fixes?

Package	Patch details
systemd	Upstream: https://github.com/poettering/systemd/commits/polkit-ref-count Upstream: ea0d0ed

Severity score breakdown

CVSS version: CVSS v3.0

Base score 7.8 · High

Base metrics

Parameter	Value
Attack vector	Local
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	Low
User interaction	None
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality impact	High
Integrity impact	High
Availability impact	High

Scores

Parameter	Value
Base score	7.8 · High
Exploitability score	-
Impact score	-

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

Related Ubuntu Security Notices (USN)

USN-4269-1
systemd vulnerabilities
5 February 2020

Other references

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-1712