CVE-2020-17489

Exp

An issue was discovered in certain configurations of GNOME gnome-shell through 3.36.4. When logging out of an account, the password box from the login dialog reappears with the password still visible. If the user had decided to have the password shown in cleartext at login time, it is then visible for a brief moment upon a logout. (If the password were never shown in cleartext, only the password length is revealed.)

Published: 2020-08-11 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2020-17489 is rated Exploit Available (50/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.55%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2020-17489

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-17489

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.15% 0.55% +0.40%
2 2025-12-28 0.15% 0.15% -0.00%
3 2025-12-27 — 0.15% —

Full EPSS history (14 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-17489

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:P)
Hands-on access—USB, keyboard, opening the case—not something you do purely over the wire.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 0.7 3.6 [email protected]
1.9 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 3.4 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2020-17489

OS Trackers for CVE-2020-17489

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2020-17489 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (gnome-shell), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2020-17489
gentoo low CVE-2020-17489: 1 GLSA(s) (202009-08), 1 atom(s) (gnome-base/gnome-shell); latest impact low. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2020-17489
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-17489
suse low CVE-2020-17489 severity low: SUSE including 50 source package names (gnome-extensions-40.5-1.1, gnome-extensions-41.4-150400.1.7, …), 122 product×package rows across 40 product lines (SUSE Liberty Linux 8, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12, … (40 product lines)): Known Not Affected 67, Fixed 55. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-17489/
ubuntu medium CVE-2020-17489 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (gnome-shell), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bionic, focal, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 2, released 2, DNE 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2020-17489

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-17489

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gnome gnome-shell <= 3.36.4 cpe:2.3:a:gnome:gnome-shell:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
canonical ubuntu_linux 20.04 cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:*:*:*:lts:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
opensuse leap 15.2 cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:leap:15.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-17489

cvelogic Threat Intelligence