CVE-2020-12638

medium

Description

An encryption-bypass issue was discovered on Espressif ESP-IDF devices through 4.2, ESP8266_NONOS_SDK devices through 3.0.3, and ESP8266_RTOS_SDK devices through 3.3. Broadcasting forged beacon frames forces a device to change its authentication mode to OPEN, effectively disabling its 802.11 encryption.

References

Advisories
More

https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf

https://github.com/espressif/ESP8266_RTOS_SDK

https://github.com/espressif/ESP8266_NONOS_SDK

https://lbsfilm.at/blog/wpa2-authenticationmode-downgrade-in-espressif-microprocessors

Details

Source: Mitre, NVD

Published: 2020-07-23

Updated: 2026-06-17

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Base Score: 4.3

Vector: CVSS2#AV:A/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N

Severity: Medium

CVSS v3

Base Score: 6.8

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

Severity: Medium

EPSS

EPSS: 0.00034