CVE-2020-28924

Exp

An issue was discovered in Rclone before 1.53.3. Due to the use of a weak random number generator, the password generator has been producing weak passwords with much less entropy than advertised. The suggested passwords depend deterministically on the time the second rclone was started. This limits the entropy of the passwords enormously. These passwords are often used in the crypt backend for encryption of data. It would be possible to make a dictionary of all possible passwords with about 38 million entries per password length. This would make decryption of secret material possible with a plausible amount of effort. NOTE: all passwords generated by affected versions should be changed.

Published: 2020-11-19 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2020-28924 is rated High Exploit Risk (65.1/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.35%). 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-2020-28924

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-28924

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 2025-11-21 0.20% 0.35% +0.15%
2 2025-11-18 0.35% 0.20% -0.15%
3 2025-10-29 — 0.35% —

Full EPSS history (16 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-28924

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N 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:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]
5.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N 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:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 10.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2020-28924

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2020-28924

GHSA-rmw5-xpg9-jr29 · Severity: high · Ecosystem: go — Use of Cryptographically Weak Pseudo-Random Number Generator in Rclone

OS Trackers for CVE-2020-28924

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2020-28924 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (rclone), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2020-28924
gentoo normal CVE-2020-28924: 1 GLSA(s) (202107-14), 1 atom(s) (net-misc/rclone); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2020-28924
ubuntu medium CVE-2020-28924 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (rclone), 16 status rows across 16 suites (bionic, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 10, DNE 2, needs-triage 2, ignored 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2020-28924

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-28924

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
rclone rclone < 1.53.3 cpe:2.3:a:rclone:rclone:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 33 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:33:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-28924

cvelogic Threat Intelligence