Bigbluebutton
CVE-2020-12443
CRITICAL
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V5 - File Handling Path canonicalization, traversal prevention
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 2 tactics: Discovery, Collection The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 9.8 (CRITICAL). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction not required. Public proof-of-concept exploit code is available. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote attacker could access files and directories outside the intended path by sending crafted requests to the affected application. No authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
BigBlueButton before 2.2.6 allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files because the presfilename (lowercase) value can be a .pdf filename while the presFilename (mixed case) value has a ../. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available.
RemediationAI
A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Validate and canonicalize file paths. Use chroot or sandboxing. Reject input containing path separators or '../' sequences.
Affects your stack
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Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as Path Traversal (CWE-22), which allows attackers to access files and directories outside the intended path. BigBlueButton before 2.2.6 allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files because the presfilename (lowercase) value can be a .pdf filename while the presFilename (mixed case) value has a ../ sequence. This can be leveraged for privilege escalation via a directory traversal to bigbluebutton.properties. NOTE: this issue exists because of an ineffective mitigation to CVE-2020-12112 in which there was an attempted fix within an NGINX configuration file, without considering that the relevant part of NGINX is case-insensitive. Affected products include: Bigbluebutton. Version information: before 2.2.6.
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- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
BigBlueButton before 2.2.6 allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files because the presfilename (lowercase) value can be a .pdf filename while the presFilename (mixed case) value has a ../ sequence. This can be leveraged for privilege escalation via a directory traversal to bigbluebutton.properties. NOTE: this issue exists because of an ineffective mitigation to CVE-2020-12112 in which there was an attempted fix within an NGINX configuration file, without considering that the relevant part of NGINX is case-insensitive.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
GitHub
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Privilege escalation occurs when an attacker leverages flaws in access control mechanisms to gain permissions beyond what they were originally granted.
Path traversal exploits occur when applications use user-controlled input to construct file system paths without proper validation.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
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Exploit-DB