Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2020-17489

An issue was discovered in certain configurations of GNOME gnome-shell through 3.36.4. When logging out of an account, the password box from the login dialog reappears with the password still visible. If the user had decided to have the password shown in cleartext at login time, it is then visible for a brief moment upon a logout. (If the password were never shown in cleartext, only the password length is revealed.)

Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 4.3, with relatively low complexity though user interaction is required and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), for affected systems. Impacting 4 products from gnome, from canonical, from debian and 1 other, organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Reported in 2020, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.

Published

2020-08-11T21:15:10.837

Last Modified

2024-11-21T05:08:13.003

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 4.3 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Access Vector: LOCAL
Access Complexity: MEDIUM
Authentication: NONE
Confidentiality Impact: PARTIAL
Integrity Impact: NONE
Availability Impact: NONE

Exploitability Score

3.4

Impact Score

2.9

Weaknesses

Type: Primary
CWE-522

Affected Vendors & Products

Type	Vendor	Product	Version/Range	Vulnerable?
Application	gnome	gnome-shell	≤ 3.36.4	Yes
Operating System	canonical	ubuntu_linux	20.04	Yes
Operating System	debian	debian_linux	9.0	Yes
Operating System	opensuse	leap	15.2	Yes

References

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-11/msg00028.html Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/2997 Exploit, Patch, Vendor Advisory ([email protected])
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/09/msg00014.html Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202009-08 Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4464-1/ Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-11/msg00028.html Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/2997 Exploit, Patch, Vendor Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/09/msg00014.html Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202009-08 Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4464-1/ Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For gnome's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.