CVE-2020-27221

In Eclipse OpenJ9 up to and including version 0.23, there is potential for a stack-based buffer overflow when the virtual machine or JNI natives are converting from UTF-8 characters to platform encoding.

Published: 2021-01-21 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2020-27221 is rated High Risk (65/100): CVSS Critical severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.53%). High exploitation likelihood—assess exposure and prioritize remediation.

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-27221

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 0.73% 1.53% +0.80%
2 2026-01-04 0.35% 0.73% +0.38%
3 2025-11-21 — 0.35% —

Full EPSS history (18 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-27221

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
9.8 3.1 CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
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:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
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:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 5.9 [email protected]
7.5 2.0 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
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:P)
Partial availability impact.
 10.0 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2020-27221

OS Trackers for CVE-2020-27221

vendor priority summary link
redhat critical — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-27221
suse critical CVE-2020-27221 severity critical: SUSE including 258 source package names (amazon/suse-sles-15-sp1-chost-byos-v20210304-hvm-ssd-x86_64, amazon/suse-sles-15-sp1-chost-byos-v20220127-hvm-ssd-x86_64, …), 642 product×package rows across 104 product lines (HPE Helion OpenStack 8, Image SLES12-SP5-Azure-SAP-BYOS, … (104 product lines)): Fixed 411, Known Affected 231. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-27221/
ubuntu medium CVE-2020-27221 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (eclipse), 16 status rows across 16 suites (bionic, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 13, needs-triage 3. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2020-27221

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-27221

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
eclipse openj9 <= 0.23.0 cpe:2.3:a:eclipse:openj9:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-27221

URL Tags
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=569763 Issue Tracking Vendor Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence