CVE-2020-37123

CriticalPublic PoCRCE

Published: 05 February 2026

Published

05 February 2026

Modified

15 April 2026

KEV Added

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Patch

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CVSS Score v4 9.3 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

EPSS Score 0.0314 86.2th percentile

Risk Priority 70 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2020-37123 is a critical-severity OS Command Injection (CWE-78) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 9.3 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked in the top 13.8% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).

Deeper analysis

CVE-2020-37123 is a remote code execution vulnerability in Pinger 1.0, specifically affecting the ping.php component. The flaw stems from unsanitized input in the ping and socket parameters, enabling attackers to inject shell commands by appending shell metacharacters. This allows writing arbitrary PHP files and executing system commands. Published on 2026-02-05, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) and maps to CWE-78 (OS Command Injection).

Remote attackers can exploit this vulnerability over the network without authentication, privileges, or user interaction, requiring only low attack complexity. Successful exploitation achieves high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, resulting in full remote code execution on the server hosting Pinger 1.0.

Advisories and references, including those from VulnCheck (https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/pinger-remote-code-execution), Exploit-DB (https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/48323), and the project repository (https://github.com/wcchandler/pinger), provide additional details on the issue and potential exploits.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2020-31045

Vulnerability details

Pinger 1.0 contains a remote code execution vulnerability that allows attackers to inject shell commands through the ping and socket parameters. Attackers can exploit the unsanitized input in ping.php to write arbitrary PHP files and execute system commands by appending…

shell metacharacters.

CWE(s): CWE-78

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access

Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.

attack.mitre.org →

T1059.004 Unix Shell Execution

Adversaries may abuse Unix shell commands and scripts for execution.

attack.mitre.org →

Why these techniques?

Remote code execution via unsanitized input in public-facing ping.php enables exploitation of public-facing applications (T1190) and facilitates OS command injection into Unix shell (T1059.004).

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0