# CVE-2020-6992: Privilege escalation in GE Digital CIMPLICITY

> An authenticated local attacker can escalate privileges to execute arbitrary code on GE Digital CIMPLICITY HMI/SCADA systems.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.7 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 15 Apr 2020
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-xw2r-q7pv-2r5q

## What is CVE-2020-6992?

CVE-2020-6992 is a medium-severity vulnerability in GE Digital CIMPLICITY, published on 15 Apr 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A local privilege escalation vulnerability has been identified in the GE Digital CIMPLICITY HMI/SCADA product v10.0 and prior. If exploited, this vulnerability could allow an adversary to modify the system, leading to the arbitrary execution of code. This vulnerability is only exploitable if an attacker has access to an authenticated session. GE Digital CIMPLICITY v11.0, released January 2020, contains mitigation for this local privilege escalation vulnerability. GE Digital recommends all users upgrade to GE CIMPLICITY v11.0 or newer.

Weakness: CWE-269 (Improper Privilege Management)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-6992?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Ge Cimplicity.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-6992?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-6992 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-6992 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-6992 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in GE Digital CIMPLICITY

- [CVE-2018-15362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-15362/): XML external entity in GE Proficy Cimplicity GDS (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2023-4487](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-4487/): GE Digital CIMPLICITY Process Control (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2022-2002](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-2002/): GE CIMPLICITY Untrusted Pointer Dereference (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2022-2948](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-2948/): GE CIMPLICITY Heap-based Buffer Overflow (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2022-2952](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-2952/): GE CIMPLICITY Access of Uninitialized Pointer (high 7.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-6992 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-6992 is a medium-severity vulnerability in GE Digital CIMPLICITY, published on 15 Apr 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-6992 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: GE Digital CIMPLICITY. 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-2020-6992/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-6992/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-6992
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-6992
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-6992

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-6992/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.