# CVE-2020-15731: Local Privilege Escalation in Bitdefender Engines (VA-8953)

> An attacker can exploit improper input validation in file renaming to write arbitrary files, leading to local privilege escalation.

- **Severity:** Low 3.2 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 30 Sep 2020
- **Updated:** 16 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-ghcw-jqxh-fxcc

## What is CVE-2020-15731?

CVE-2020-15731 is a low-severity path traversal vulnerability in Bitdefender Engines, published on 30 Sep 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

An improper Input Validation vulnerability in the code handling file renaming and recovery in Bitdefender Engines allows an attacker to write an arbitrary file in a location hardcoded in a specially-crafted malicious file name. This issue affects: Bitdefender Engines versions prior to 7.85448.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-15731?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Bitdefender Engines.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-15731?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-15731 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-15731 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-15731 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Bitdefender Engines

- [CVE-2020-8100](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-8100/): Incomplete validation in detection code in Bitdefender Engines (VA-8589) (critical 9.0)
- [CVE-2022-3369](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-3369/): Improper handling of registry symbolic links in Bitdefender Engines (high 8.6)
- [CVE-2023-3633](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-3633/): Out of Bounds Memory Corruption Issue in CEVA Engine (high 8.1)
- [CVE-2020-8110](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-8110/): Bitdefender ceva_emu.cvd module denial-of-service (VA-8766) (medium 5.9)
- [CVE-2020-8109](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-8109/): Bitdefender ace.xmd parser out-of-bounds write (VA-8772) (medium 5.9)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-15731 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-15731 is a low-severity path traversal vulnerability in Bitdefender Engines, published on 30 Sep 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-15731 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Bitdefender Engines. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-15731/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-15731/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-15731
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-15731
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-15731

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-15731/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.