Vulnerability report

Exploited in the wild Confirmed confidence In CISA KEV

CVE-2020-14871

Solaris Operating System

Oracle / Solaris Operating System · 10

Watch CVE-2020-14871 Browse KEV feed
Severity
CVSS 10.0 · Critical
Confidence
Confirmed
Exploit status
Exploited in the wild
EPSS
80.2%
First observed
—
Last observed
—

Decision summary

What security teams need to know first

Direct answers before the deeper technical record.

What it is

CVE-2020-14871 is an unauthenticated vulnerability affecting Oracle Solaris Operating System. Vulnerability in the Oracle Solaris product of Oracle Systems (component: Pluggable authentication module). Supported...

Is it exploited?

Yes. Previdian tracks this CVE as a known exploited vulnerability. Confidence is confirmed. Listed in CISA KEV.

Who is affected?

Oracle / Solaris Operating System 10.

What should we do?

Prioritize remediation. Validate affected assets and apply vendor fixes on an accelerated timeline.

Overview

Vulnerability in the Oracle Solaris product of Oracle Systems (component: Pluggable authentication module)

Vulnerability in the Oracle Solaris product of Oracle Systems (component: Pluggable authentication module). Supported versions that are affected are 10 and 11. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows unauthenticated attacker with network access via multiple protocols to compromise Oracle Solaris. While the vulnerability is in Oracle Solaris, attacks may significantly impact additional products.

Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in takeover of Oracle Solaris. Note: This CVE is not exploitable for Solaris 11.1 and later releases, and ZFSSA 8.7 and later releases, thus the CVSS Base Score is 0.0. CVSS 3.1 Base Score 10.0 (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H).

oracle Affected
solaris
10 11
Oracle Corporation Affected
Solaris Operating System
10 11
Published
21 Oct 2020
Exploitation Reported
03 Nov 2021
Attack vector
Remote
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None

Tags

metasploit cisa

CVE References

Exploitation evidence

Why Previdian marks this CVE as exploited

Third-party attestation and first-party sensor observation are shown separately so teams can judge the evidence chain.

Exploited in the wild

CISA

Recorded 03 Nov 2021

A trusted third party reported exploitation.

Proof of concept available

GitHub

Recorded 25 Dec 2021

Public scanner or PoC coverage increases practical exploitability.

Known exploited vulnerability sources

Per-source evidence links for KEV attestations are available through the Previdian Pro API.

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Source Added
CISA First 2021-11-03 00:00 UTC

Detection

Operational artifacts and observed signals

Make the evidence actionable in scanner, SOC, and edge-control workflows.

Observed signals

Request targets
User-Agents
Callback hosts
0
0
0

Request targets and User-Agents available in Pro. Callback host details available in Enterprise.

Virtual patch status

No Previdian virtual patch is currently available. Future rules ship for ModSecurity, Cloudflare, and AWS WAF.

Learn about virtual patches →

Scanner Artifacts

Scanner and exploit-framework references linked to this CVE.

Scanner Reference Detected
Metasploit https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/blob/master/modules/exploits/solaris/ssh/pam_username_bof.rb 28 Apr 2025

Risk and context

Severity, weaknesses, and research context

CVSS v3.1

10.0 Critical

Potential damage if exploited. Separate from whether attackers are using it.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS

80.2%

Estimated chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Previdian's warning comes from evidence, not this score.

Weaknesses

Out-of-bounds Write CWE-787

Potential Proof of Concepts

These PoCs are unverified and could contain malware. Use at your own risk.

pam_username_bof

metasploit · Created Unknown

Metasploit module for CVE-2020-14871

Timeline

From disclosure to observed exploitation

  1. 15:02 UTC

    Metasploit module available

    Exploit module available

  2. 15:02 UTC

    Public PoC available

    Public proof-of-concept code published

  3. 00:00 UTC

    Added to CISA KEV

    Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

  4. 14:04 UTC

    CVE published

    Vulnerability disclosed publicly

  5. 00:00 UTC

    CVE ID reserved

    Identifier reserved by the CNA

Pro API

Automate this intelligence

Confidence, exploit status, sensor telemetry, PoCs, scanner integrations, mentions, and tags are available programmatically for VM, SOC, and CTI workflows.

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  • Evidence confidence and provenance
  • First-party sensor telemetry
  • PoC and scanner references
  • Affected versions and enrichment
  • Automation-ready JSON delivery

GET /api/v2/pro/kevs/CVE-2020-14871

Sample API response 
{
  "cve_id": "CVE-2020-14871",
  "confidence": "Confirmed",
  "cvss_score": 10.0,
  "cvss_estimated": false,
  "epss_score": 0.80157,
  "exploit_status": {
    "exploited_in_the_wild": true,
    "active_exploitation_observed": false
  },
  "sensor_telemetry": { "attempts": 0, "sensors": 0 }
}