CVE-2020-8239

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 2.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2020-10-28 · updated 2026-06-17

Description

A vulnerability in the Pulse Secure Desktop Client < 9.1R9 is vulnerable to the client registry privilege escalation attack. This fix also requires Server Side Upgrade due to Standalone Host Checker Client (Windows) and Windows PDC.

Affected products

Pulse Secure Desktop Client: before 9.1; 9.1-r1, 9.1-r2, 9.1-r3, 9.1-r3.1, 9.1-r4, 9.1-r4.1 (+7) — fixed in 9.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Pulse Secure Desktop Client 9.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://kb.pulsesecure.net/articles/Pulse_Security_Advisories/SA44601
https://kb.pulsesecure.net/articles/Pulse_Security_Advisories/SA44601

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