CVE-2020-17496
Vbulletin 5.5.4 – 5.6.2
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2020-17496 is a critical-severity Injection (CWE-74) vulnerability in Vbulletin Vbulletin. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, ranked in the top 0.2% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
vBulletin versions 5.5.4 through 5.6.2 contain a remote command execution vulnerability that stems from insufficient handling of crafted subWidgets data supplied to the ajax/render/widget_tabbedcontainer_tab_panel endpoint. The flaw is an incomplete remediation of the earlier CVE-2019-16759 issue and is tracked under CWE-74. It received a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.8, reflecting network-accessible attack vectors that require no authentication or user interaction.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can submit a malicious request containing manipulated subWidgets parameters to execute arbitrary operating-system commands on the underlying server, resulting in full confidentiality, integrity, and availability impact. Public exploit details demonstrate that the same widget-tab rendering path used in prior attacks remains reachable after the partial patch.
The official vBulletin security announcement addresses the issue in later releases and urges administrators to apply the vendor-supplied updates for versions 5.6.0 and above. Independent analysis of the patch confirms that the widget data deserialization logic was not fully hardened, allowing continued exploitation until the corrected code is deployed.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2020-9444
Vulnerability Data
vBulletin 5.5.4 through 5.6.2 allows remote command execution via crafted subWidgets data in an ajax/render/widget_tabbedcontainer_tab_panel request. NOTE: this issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2019-16759.
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 03 November 2021
Related Threats
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Developer assessments and testing (including injection-focused techniques) identify improper neutralization of special elements, and the verifiable flaw remediation corrects them pre-deployment.
Identifies indicators of injection attacks (command, SQL, LDAP, etc.) via anomaly and attack monitoring.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Logging supports detection of injection attempts but does not prevent the weakness.
Monitoring activities can identify active injection attacks after they occur.
A.8.25 mandates a secure SDLC process that includes secure coding guidelines, security requirements, checkpoints, testing (scans/penetration), and developer training to reduce injection flaws, but does not itself enforce or guarantee neutralization of special elements at runtime.
Application security requirements explicitly call for controls against injection attacks in software design.
A.8.27 mandates security-by-design principles (including distrust external input, data validation/sanitization, secure architecture layers, and design reviews against attack patterns) that reach injection when applied to output construction; this stops exploitation for a minority slice (e.g. where principles drive sanitization) but leaves most code-level injection defects untouched without further implementation rigor.
Secure coding standards require proper neutralization of special elements, directly addressing CWE-74.
Hardening callouts derived
DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.
- No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-74, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.