CVE-2020-15701: Unhandled exception in apport

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2020-08-06 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-755

Description

An unhandled exception in check_ignored() in apport/report.py can be exploited by a local attacker to cause a denial of service. If the mtime attribute is a string value in apport-ignore.xml, it will trigger an unhandled exception, resulting in a crash. Fixed in 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.24, 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.16, 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.6.

Affected products

Canonical apport: 2.20.11-0ubuntu8, 2.20.11-0ubuntu9, 2.20.11-0ubuntu10, 2.20.11-0ubuntu11, 2.20.11-0ubuntu12, 2.20.11-0ubuntu13 (+94)
Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, 20.04

References

https://launchpad.net/bugs/1877023
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4449-1
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4449-1/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4449-2/
https://launchpad.net/bugs/1877023
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4449-1
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4449-1/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4449-2/

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