Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2020-5217

medium Nessus Plugin ID 257797

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.

- In Secure Headers (RubyGem secure_headers), a directive injection vulnerability is present in versions before 3.8.0, 5.1.0, and 6.2.0. If user-supplied input was passed into append/override_content_security_policy_directives, a semicolon could be injected leading to directive injection. This could be used to e.g. override a script-src directive. Duplicate directives are ignored and the first one wins. The directives in secure_headers are sorted alphabetically so they pretty much all come before script-src. A previously undefined directive would receive a value even if SecureHeaders::OPT_OUT was supplied. The fixed versions will silently convert the semicolons to spaces and emit a deprecation warning when this happens. This will result in innocuous browser console messages if being exploited/accidentally used. In future releases, we will raise application errors resulting in 500s.
Depending on what major version you are using, the fixed versions are 6.2.0, 5.1.0, 3.8.0. (CVE-2020-5217)

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: 257797

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2020_5217.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 8/27/2025

Updated: 8/27/2025

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 2.4

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5

Temporal Score: 3.9

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2020-5217

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.8

Temporal Score: 5.2

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:ruby-secure-headers

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: 1/23/2020

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2020-5217

Detections

Analytics