CVE-2020-28949
Actively exploited. CVE-2020-28949 is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-08-25) — exploitation has been observed in the wild, and US federal agencies are required to remediate it under BOD 22-01. Treat patching as urgent.
Public exploit code is available. Proof-of-concept or working exploit code for CVE-2020-28949 is indexed in Metasploit and GitHub PoC. Expect opportunistic scanning and exploitation attempts — prioritize remediation.
PEAR Archive_Tar allows an unserialization attack because phar: is blocked but PHAR: is not blocked. PEAR stands for PHP Extension and Application Repository and it is an open-source framework and distribution system for reusable PHP components with known usage in third-party products such as Drupal Core and Red Hat Linux.
CSIRTS triage
- What
- An unserialization attack is possible due to improper blocking of phar: and PHAR: protocols.
- Who is affected
- Users of PEAR Archive_Tar in third-party products like Drupal Core and Red Hat Linux.
- Urgency
- Remediation is urgent as the vulnerability is actively exploited and critical in nature.
- Action
- Update PEAR Archive_Tar to the latest version to address the deserialization issue.
AI-assisted analysis generated from the source advisory — verify against the original.
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Exploitation outlook
- Exploitation confirmedAlready exploited in the wild (CISA KEV) — the prediction phase is over. Patch now. Riskier than 100% of all EPSS-scored CVEs.
Exploit availability
Public exploit or proof-of-concept code for CVE-2020-28949 is indexed in these free datasets. Available exploit code raises real-world risk independent of the CVSS score.
- MetasploitA Metasploit Framework module targets this CVE — weaponized, point-and-click exploitation.look it up ↗
- GitHub PoCPublic proof-of-concept repositories on GitHub reference this CVE.look it up ↗
Advisory coverage (1)
- criticalexploitedCVE-2020-28949: PEAR Archive_Tar Deserialization of Untrusted Data Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2022-08-25
External references
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[](https://www.csirts.com/cve/CVE-2020-28949)