CVE-2020-29599

Exp

ImageMagick before 6.9.11-40 and 7.x before 7.0.10-40 mishandles the -authenticate option, which allows setting a password for password-protected PDF files. The user-controlled password was not properly escaped/sanitized and it was therefore possible to inject additional shell commands via coders/pdf.c.

Published: 2020-12-07 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2020-29599 is rated High Exploit Risk (78.5/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 66.55%, 99th percentile). 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-2020-29599

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-29599

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 2026-06-10 68.75% 66.55% -2.20%
2 2025-11-21 38.95% 68.75% +29.80%
3 2025-11-18 — 38.95% —

Full EPSS history (12 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-29599

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H 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: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: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.
 1.8 5.9 [email protected]
6.8 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/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: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:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 8.6 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2020-29599

OS Trackers for CVE-2020-29599

vendor priority summary link
alpine high CVE-2020-29599: 2 source package rows (imagemagick, imagemagick6); 33 state rows across 8 repos (3.10-main, 3.17-community, 3.18-community, 3.19-community, 3.20-community, 3.21-community, 3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 21, open 12. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2020-29599
debian not yet assigned CVE-2020-29599 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (imagemagick), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2020-29599
gentoo normal CVE-2020-29599: 1 GLSA(s) (202101-36), 1 atom(s) (media-gfx/imagemagick); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2020-29599
redhat high — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-29599
suse high CVE-2020-29599 severity important: SUSE including 122 source package names (ImageMagick, ImageMagick-6.9.10.68-5.el7_9, …), 258 product×package rows across 43 product lines (SUSE CaaS Platform 4.0, SUSE Enterprise Storage 6, … (43 product lines)): Fixed 254, Known Not Affected 4. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-29599/
ubuntu negligible CVE-2020-29599 negligible priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (imagemagick), 11 status rows across 11 suites (bionic, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 8, released 2, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2020-29599

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-29599

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
imagemagick imagemagick >= 6.9.8-1, < 6.9.11-40 cpe:2.3:a:imagemagick:imagemagick:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
imagemagick imagemagick >= 7.0.5-3, < 7.0.10-40 cpe:2.3:a:imagemagick:imagemagick:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-29599

cvelogic Threat Intelligence