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MEDIUM

CVE-2020-5209

CVE-2020-5209 — NetHack command line parsing of options starting with -de and -i is subject to a buffer overflow

In NetHack before 3.6.5, unknown options starting with -de and -i can cause a buffer overflow resulting in a crash or remote code execution/privilege escalation. This vulnerability affects systems that have NetHack installed suid/sgid and shared systems that allow users to influence command line options. Users should upgrade to NetHack 3.6.5.

Published Updated Sources: cvelistV5, GitHub_M

Triage

Is it exploited, how likely is exploitation, what does it touch, and how severe do the scoring sources call it.

Exploitation

Unreported

no source claims exploitation

EPSS

1%

chance of exploitation in 30 days

Affects

nethack

nethack

CVSS base

5

MEDIUM

Affected scope

The catalog records vendors and products as separate lists, not pairs, so which product belongs to which vendor is not something this page can say.

Vendors (1)

nethack

Products (1)

nethack

Every base score collected

Sources score independently and disagree; each row says who scored it and under which version.

ScoreVersionSeverityExpl.ImpactSource
5CVSS 3.1MEDIUM——cvelistV5

Weakness & attack patterns

  • CWE-120

Detection

Read off the CVSS vector and the weakness class. Starting points, not rules we have tested.

  • Search application, proxy, and WAF logs for requests touching /privilege, /sgid.

References

2 on the record

Elsewhere on this site

  • nethackevery CVE for this vendor
  • CWE-120other pages naming this weakness

Not in any source we poll

Listed rather than left blank: an empty field and an unmeasured one look identical on screen, and only one is a reason to look elsewhere.

  • No confirmed IOCs, IP addresses, domains, file hashes, or malware artifacts supplied.
  • No organization-specific asset inventory, compensating-control status, or patch deployment evidence supplied.
  • No exploit packet captures, log samples, or incident case IDs supplied.