Osquery
CVE-2020-26273
MEDIUM
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A05:2025 - Injection
ASVS 5.0
V1 - Encoding and Sanitization Command injection prevention
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Execution The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 5.2 (MEDIUM). Attack characteristics: local attack vector, low complexity, low privileges required, no user interaction not required. Public proof-of-concept exploit code is available. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A local attacker with access to the system could inject arbitrary commands into system command execution. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
osquery is a SQL powered operating system instrumentation, monitoring, and analytics framework. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.2), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. Public exploit code available.
RemediationAI
A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Use parameterized APIs, avoid shell execution, validate input with strict allowlists.
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 Command Injection (CWE-77), which allows attackers to inject arbitrary commands into system command execution. osquery is a SQL powered operating system instrumentation, monitoring, and analytics framework. In osquery before version 4.6.0, by using sqlite's ATTACH verb, someone with administrative access to osquery can cause reads and writes to arbitrary sqlite databases on disk. This _does_ allow arbitrary files to be created, but they will be sqlite databases. It does not appear to allow existing non-sqlite files to be overwritten. This has been patched in osquery 4.6.0. There are several mitigating factors and possible workarounds. In some deployments, the people with access to these interfaces may be considered administrators. In some deployments, configuration is managed by a central tool. This tool can filter for the ATTACH keyword. osquery can be run as non-root user. Because this also limits the desired access levels, this requires deployment specific testing and configuration. Affected products include: Linuxfoundation Osquery. Version information: version 4.6.0.
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Severity by source
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
osquery is a SQL powered operating system instrumentation, monitoring, and analytics framework. In osquery before version 4.6.0, by using sqlite's ATTACH verb, someone with administrative access to osquery can cause reads and writes to arbitrary sqlite databases on disk. This _does_ allow arbitrary files to be created, but they will be sqlite databases. It does not appear to allow existing non-sqlite files to be overwritten. This has been patched in osquery 4.6.0. There are several mitigating factors and possible workarounds. In some deployments, the people with access to these interfaces may be considered administrators. In some deployments, configuration is managed by a central tool. This tool can filter for the ATTACH keyword. osquery can be run as non-root user. Because this also limits the desired access levels, this requires deployment specific testing and configuration.
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
OS command injection occurs when an application passes unsanitized user input directly into system shell commands.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
osquery before version 4.4.0 enables a privilege escalation vulnerability. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.2), this vulnerab
An issue was discovered in osquery. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is no authentication required, lo
Incorrect validation of the TLS SNI hostname in osquery versions after 2.9.0 and before 4.2.0 could allow an attacker to
In some configurations an attacker can inject a new executable path into the extensions.load file for osquery and hard l
Local privilege escalation in osquery on Windows prior to 5.23.1 lets a standard (unprivileged) user escalate to SYSTEM
Local privilege escalation in osquery on Windows prior to 5.23.1 lets a standard user escalate to SYSTEM by planting a m
File carve operations in osquery prior to 5.23.1 expose sensitive data due to world-readable temporary directory permiss
Exploit-DB