Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2020-15707

medium Nessus Plugin ID 255467

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

- Integer overflows were discovered in the functions grub_cmd_initrd and grub_initrd_init in the efilinux component of GRUB2, as shipped in Debian, Red Hat, and Ubuntu (the functionality is not included in GRUB2 upstream), leading to a heap-based buffer overflow. These could be triggered by an extremely large number of arguments to the initrd command on 32-bit architectures, or a crafted filesystem with very large files on any architecture. An attacker could use this to execute arbitrary code and bypass UEFI Secure Boot restrictions. This issue affects GRUB2 version 2.04 and prior versions. (CVE-2020-15707)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 255467

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2020_15707.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 8/26/2025

Updated: 8/26/2025

Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: High

Score: 7.4

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.4

Temporal Score: 3.4

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2020-15707

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.4

Temporal Score: 5.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:P/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:grub2-unsigned, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:-:lts

Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/local_checks_enabled, global_settings/vendor_unpatched, Host/OS/identifier

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/29/2020

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2020-15707

Detections

Analytics