What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2020-12880

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2020-07-27 · updated 2026-06-17

Description

An issue was discovered in Pulse Policy Secure (PPS) and Pulse Connect Secure (PCS) Virtual Appliance before 9.1R8. By manipulating a certain kernel boot parameter, it can be tricked into dropping into a root shell in a pre-install phase where the entire source code of the appliance is available and can be retrieved. (The source code is otherwise inaccessible because the appliance has its hard disks encrypted, and no root shell is available during normal operation.)

Affected products

• Ivanti Connect Secure (Pulse Secure): 9.1, 9.1-r1, 9.1-r2, 9.1-r3, 9.1-r4, 9.1-r4.1 (+5)
• Ivanti Policy Secure: 9.1-r1, 9.1-r2, 9.1-r3, 9.1-r3.1, 9.1-r4, 9.1-r4.1 (+4)
• Ivanti Connect Secure (Pulse Secure): through 9.0
• Pulsesecure Pulse Policy Secure: through 9.0

References

• https://kb.pulsesecure.net/?atype=sa
• https://kb.pulsesecure.net/articles/Pulse_Security_Advisories/SA44516
• https://kb.pulsesecure.net/?atype=sa
• https://kb.pulsesecure.net/articles/Pulse_Security_Advisories/SA44516

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