CVE-2020-12689Network attack vector

Authenticated privilege escalation via ignored scoped roles

Published May 6, 2020 · Updated Aug 4, 2024

Privilege escalation in OpenStack Keystone before 15.0.1 and 16.0.0 allows remote authenticated users to obtain broader project roles. The EC2 credential creation path ignores roles carried by trust-, OAuth-, or application-credential-scoped tokens and derives roles from the underlying user and project. A user with only a delegated viewer role can therefore mint an EC2 credential that acts with the delegator's administrator privileges, potentially yielding global administrative access.

CVSS severity8.7
High
EPSS probability1.56%
Next 30 days · Sep 16, 2026
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Based on sourced intelligence
Hinoki checkNot available
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Summary

What happened

Privilege escalation in OpenStack Keystone before 15.0.1 and 16.0.0 allows remote authenticated users to obtain broader project roles. The EC2 credential creation path ignores roles carried by trust-, OAuth-, or application-credential-scoped tokens and derives roles from the underlying user and project. A user with only a delegated viewer role can therefore mint an EC2 credential that acts with the delegator's administrator privileges, potentially yielding global administrative access.

The record

CVE
CVE-2020-12689
Published
May 6, 2020
Updated
Aug 4, 2024
Vendor
Unknown vendor
Product
Unknown product
Classifications
CWE-269, T1098.001
Attack vector
network
Privileges
authenticated

Timeline

How it unfolded

  1. May 6, 2020CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
  2. Aug 4, 2024Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.

Exploitability

Present is not the same as exploitable

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Is a vulnerable build present?

Affected buildAffected product and version details are unavailable.

What conditions does exploitation require?

Attack vectornetwork
Required privilegesauthenticated

What is affected?

Affected products and versions are unavailable in this record.

Published CVSS scores

8.8NIST NVDCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
8.7GitHub Advisory DatabaseCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
6.5NIST NVDAV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P

CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.

Attacks

What attackers are doing with it

Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.

Daily unique IPsNo honeypot observations are available for this CVE in the selected window.

No observations available

Sep 10, 2026Sep 16, 2026
Latest reporting daySep 16, 2026
Latest daily unique IPsUnavailable
Prior 30-day averageUnavailable
SourceShadowserver honeypots (KEV)
Vectornetwork
Privilegesauthenticated
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Public exploitUnconfirmed

Weakness, pattern, technique

CWE-269Improper Privilege Management
T1098.001Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Credentials

Public exploit references

No public exploit references are available in this record.

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Technologies

Your stack

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Your stack

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