THREATPORT/VULNERABILITY/CVE-2020-16881
HIGH SEVERITY

CVE-2020-16881

Visual Studio Code vulnerability

CVSS
7.8
EPSS
5.4%
EPSS pct
92th
Exploited
No known
<p>A remote code execution vulnerability exists in Visual Studio Code when a user is tricked into opening a malicious 'package.json' file. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could run arbitrary code in the context of the current user. If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker could take control of the affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.</p> <p>To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need to convince a target to clone a repository and open it in Visual Studio Code. Attacker-specified code would execute when the target opens the malicious 'package.json' file.</p> <p>The update address the vulnerability by modifying the way Visual Studio Code handles JSON files.</p>
Affected vendor
Microsoft
Affected product
Visual Studio Code
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Published
2020-09-11

Risk analysis

Based on its CVSS vector, this vulnerability is exploitable with local access, low attack complexity, requiring no privileges, user interaction. Successful exploitation leads to high impact to confidentiality, high impact to integrity, high impact to availability.

Its EPSS score of 5.4% reflects a lower probability of exploitation activity in the wild over the next 30 days, placing it above 92% of all scored CVEs.

Check your external exposure to CVE-2020-16881

  • Confirm whether Microsoft Visual Studio Code is running on any internet-facing host or subdomain.
  • Match discovered service fingerprints against the version affected by CVE-2020-16881.
  • Prioritise remediation if the asset is public, business-critical, or near authentication/payment flows.

How ThreatPort helps with CVE-2020-16881

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