CVE-2020-26273 | sqlite ATTACH allows some filesystem access

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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.

Published: 2020-12-16 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2020-26273 is rated Exploit Available (52/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.23%). 2 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-2020-26273

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-26273

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 2026-04-21 0.11% 0.23% +0.12%
2 2025-11-21 0.19% 0.11% -0.08%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.19% —

Full EPSS history (12 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-26273

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.2 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.0 2.7 [email protected]
5.2 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.0 2.7 [email protected]
3.6 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 3.9 4.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2020-26273

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-26273

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linuxfoundation osquery < 4.6.0 cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:osquery:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-26273

cvelogic Threat Intelligence