scp in OpenSSH through 8.3p1 allows command injection in the scp.c toremote function, as demonstrated by backtick characters in the destination argument. NOTE: the vendor reportedly has stated that they intentionally omit validation of "anomalous argument transfers" because that could "stand a great chance of breaking existing workflows."
CVE-2020-15778
“▲” beside the score: it is higher than NVD's CVSS score.
Score 7.8 from GitHub Security Advisory published 2022-05-24. NVD baseline CVSS 7.4; sources differ by 0.4.
Also known asEUVD-2020-7762 (ENISA EUVD) · GHSA-cvxm-8hgf-6m6m (GitHub Security Advisories)Source: ENISA EUVD
- Public exploit or proof-of-concept code is available
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 7.4
- EG Score
- 7.8HIGHmedium confidence
- EG Risk
- 51EG Risk 51/100
EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score. It fuses impact severity (EG Severity, the CVSS base score, never the KEV-floored or EPSS-lifted EG Score) with real-world exploitation and automatability, under weights EchelonGraph set by hand, so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner.
How it’s computed (value × EchelonGraph’s weight)Severity78% × 45%Impact severity (EG Severity): CVSS 7.8 of 10. Never the KEV-floored or EPSS-lifted EG Score.Exploitation40% × 40%EchelonGraph's fixed weight for EG-KEV Tier 3 (Elevated): a constant, not a probability.Automatability0% × 15%CISA's SSVC Automatable value: no (Vulnrichment).SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph): Track at low, Track* at medium and Attend at high mission impact.Exploitation public PoC (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE.Action: A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low or medium mission impact and sooner than that at high. - EPSS PROB
- 14%
- EPSS %ILE
- 96th
- KEV
- Not listed
What the EG score is made of (scorer v4.0: the three questions the 0–10 score mixes, published apart · methodology)
The EG score (7.8): severity, escalated by confirmed exploitation. This CVE's 7.8 is its impact severity (EG Severity), not escalated.
- EG Severity
- 7.8 HIGHCVSS-B, impact only: no KEV listing, EPSS or EG-KEV tier raises it.GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
- EG Likelihood
- 14% within 30 daysSource: FIRST EPSS (model v2026.06.15, score date 2026-10-28). FIRST's exploitation probability, not an EchelonGraph model.
- Confirmed exploitation
- None on record (CISA KEV, EG-KEV Tier 1)Reported apart from the likelihood: an observed fact, not a probability.
- EG Priority
- SSVC Track* at medium mission impactTrack at low, Track* at medium and Attend at high mission impact.CISA BOD 26-04: 14 days if the affected system is publicly exposed; Fix on system upgrade if it is not.Each input and its source, and whom BOD 26-04 binds: the SSVC and BOD 26-04 blocks below.
SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph)Track at low, Track* at medium and Attend at high mission impact.
A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low or medium mission impact and sooner than that at high.
Exploitation public PoC (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE. Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it. CISA's table makes it high when Mission Prevalence is Essential — the vulnerable component "directly provides capabilities that constitute at least one MEF for at least one entity" (MEF: mission essential function) — or when Public Well-Being Impact is Irreversible: "multiple fatalities are likely", the cyber-physical system "is likely lost or destroyed", "extreme or serious externalities" are imposed on other parties, or social systems such as elections or the financial grid "are destabilized and potentially collapse". CISA's decision table
BOD 26-04 (CISA's remediation timeline, Table 1)14 days if the affected system is publicly exposed; Fix on system upgrade if it is not.
The score's inputs: In CISA KEV no (CISA's KEV catalog) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). Whether your system is publicly exposed is yours to answer. BOD 26-04 binds US Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies; for anyone else it is CISA's published timeline, a reference rather than an obligation. The directive · how EchelonGraph applies it
Published
July 24, 2020
Last Modified
October 14, 2026
Advisory Details (7)
Auto-updated Oct 14, 2026SSA-398330
https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-398330.htmlAffected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3166OpenSSH: Multiple Vulnerabilities (GLSA 202212-06) — Gentoo security
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202212-06Vendor Advisories for CVE-2020-15778(2)
These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.
- GHSA-cvxm-8hgf-6m6mGitHub Security AdvisoriesMedium
scp in OpenSSH through 8.3p1 allows command injection in scp.c remote function, as demonstrated...
- CVE-2020-15778Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC)High
scp in OpenSSH through 8.3p1 allows command injection in the scp.c toremote function as demonstrated by backtick characters in the destination argument. NOTE: the vendor reportedly has stated that they intentionally omit validation of "anomalous argument transfers" because that could "stand a great chance of breaking existing workflows."
Patch Availability(1)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fix (by version range) / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| redhat | openssh-0:8.0p1-24.el8 | 2024-05-22 | redhat |
Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.
Affected Packages
(10 across 10 ecosystems)
Alpine:v3.19(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| openssh | — |
| — |
Alpine:v3.20(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| openssh | — |
| — |
Alpine:v3.21(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| openssh | — |
| — |
Alpine:v3.22(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| openssh | — |
| — |
Alpine:v3.23(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| openssh | — |
| — |
Alpine:v3.24(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| openssh | — |
| — |
Debian:11(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| openssh | 1:10.0p1-1 ... 1:9.9p2-2 (86 versions) |
| — |
Debian:12(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| openssh | 1:10.0p1-1 ... 1:9.9p2-2 (77 versions) |
| — |
Debian:13(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| openssh | 1:10.0p1-7 ... 1:10.5p1-1 (31 versions) |
| — |
Debian:14(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| openssh | 1:10.0p1-7 ... 1:10.5p1-1 (27 versions) |
| — |
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Additional Vendor Advisories
(1)
Vendors that published advisories for this CVE beyond the curated set above. Broader coverage but minimal per-row detail — click through for the original advisory.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 10× in last 7d / 44× in last 30d)
Each row is a time one of our pipelines fetched, updated or re-scored this CVE. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. An arrow marks a change the record states ("CVSS v3 → 9.1"); EPSS and GHSA rows show the values recorded at that time, not what changed (EPSS values are rounded; hover one for the exact figures). Most recent first.
Showing the most recent 97 of 181 refreshes on record for this CVE.
A repeat, a row identical to one the same pipeline wrote less than 10 seconds earlier, is not a separate refresh and is not counted. 3 repeat rows among the latest 100 are merged into the row they repeat. The 84 oldest rows on record are not shown and were not checked, so the counts can still include repeats.
- 2026-11-02 16:36 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-11-01 16:29 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-31 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-30 16:29 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-29 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-28 22:22 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-28 22:22 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-28 22:22 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-cvxm-8hgf-6m6m · GitHub CVSS 7.8
- 2026-10-28 16:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-27 16:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-26 16:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-25 18:49 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-25 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-24 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-23 16:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-22 16:29 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-21 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-21 15:12 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-21 15:12 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-21 15:12 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-cvxm-8hgf-6m6m · GitHub CVSS 7.8
- 2026-10-20 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-19 16:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-18 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-18 09:32 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-17 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
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- 2026-10-16 16:33 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-15 16:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-14 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 14% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-14 10:27 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-14 10:26 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-cvxm-8hgf-6m6m · GitHub CVSS 7.8
- 2026-10-14 09:43 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-14 09:43 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-14 09:42 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-cvxm-8hgf-6m6m · GitHub CVSS 7.8
- 2026-10-13 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-12 19:44 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-12 16:29 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-12 00:07 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-11 13:43 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-10 19:56 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-09 20:04 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-08 16:38 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-07 23:44 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-06 15:13 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-05 17:39 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-03 14:22 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-10-02 16:22 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-30 15:12 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-30 14:59 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-27 13:40 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-26 18:33 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-09-26 15:54 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-26 00:20 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-24 14:00 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-22 14:43 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-21 20:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-18 19:23 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-17 19:22 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-16 14:04 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-15 03:06 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-13 16:42 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-12 14:56 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-11 14:48 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-11 09:32 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-10 09:29 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-08 21:56 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-07 15:57 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-07 04:18 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-09-06 13:44 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-05 15:24 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-04 13:57 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-04 05:03 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-02 14:08 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-09-01 03:32 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-08-30 19:14 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-08-30 01:18 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-08-27 14:21 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-08-26 14:42 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-08-25 13:45 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-08-21 23:45 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-08-20 22:52 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-08-20 14:01 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-08-19 17:00 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 96th percentile
- 2026-08-18 13:44 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-08-16 14:52 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-08-16 02:11 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-08-15 01:26 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-08-13 21:57 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-08-12 13:47 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-08-08 16:33 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-08-07 16:23 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-08-06 13:43 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-08-05 19:14 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-08-05 09:11 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-08-04 15:06 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-08-01 04:12 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-07-30 16:25 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
- 2026-07-30 01:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 13% · 95th percentile
Publicly available exploits
(4 references)Public exploit code is referenced for this CVE (3 GitHub PoCs), as is 1 GitHub checker repository. A GitHub repository named or described as a checker or scanner checks whether a system is affected; it is not necessarily exploit code. Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly.
- GitHub checkerdrackyjr/CVE-2020-15778-SCP-Command-Injection-CheckPublished Jul 28, 2025
This script is a safe and simple tool that helps system users, students, and administrators check if their SCP (Secure Copy) client is vulnerable to CVE-2020-15778, a command injection vulnerability in OpenSSH SCP (versions ≤ 8.3p1).
Open source ↗ - Open source ↗GitHub PoCyifanzhg/CVE-2020-15778Published Sep 27, 2023
- GitHub PoCNeko-chanQwQ/CVE-2020-15778-ExploitPublished Jul 15, 2021
Exploit for CVE-2020-15778(OpenSSH vul)
Open source ↗ - Open source ↗GitHub PoCcpandya2909/CVE-2020-15778Published Jul 18, 2020
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Same CWE
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Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2020-15778?
When was the CVE record for CVE-2020-15778 published?
Is CVE-2020-15778 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2020-15778?
How do I remediate CVE-2020-15778?
Dependency Blast Radius
See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2020-15778
Is Your Infrastructure Affected by CVE-2020-15778?
EchelonGraph automatically scans your cloud infrastructure and maps CVE exposure using blast radius analysis.