CVE-2020-12880An issue was discovered in Pulse Policy Secure (PPS) and Pulse Connect Secure (PCS) Virtual Appliance before 9.1R8. By manipulating a…
- 5.5MediumCVSS base score
- 0.48%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 58% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
An issue was discovered in Pulse Policy Secure (PPS) and Pulse Connect Secure (PCS) Virtual Appliance before 9.1R8. By manipulating a certain kernel boot parameter, it can be tricked into dropping into a root shell in a pre-install phase where the entire source code of the appliance is available and can be retrieved. (The source code is otherwise inaccessible because the appliance has its hard disks encrypted, and no root shell is available during normal operation.)
Timeline
ID reserved
By mitre
- 2 months later
· 2 months later
Published
- 4 years later
· 4 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | Medium5.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.48% · top 58% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 5.5.
Affected products
n/a
- affected n/a
References
References2
- https://kb.pulsesecure.net/?atype=sa (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://kb.pulsesecure.net/articles/Pulse_Security_Advisories/SA44516 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2020-5161 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2020-12880)Record last updated .