CVE-2020-5741

Plex Media Server: Remote Code Execution

As of , CVE-2020-5741 in Plex Media Server is on CISA's list of exploited vulnerabilities: CISA listed it on . Our patch-first group: Patch this week.

Exploited
Yes: CISA listed it on 10 March 2023
US federal deadline
31 March 202321 days after CISA listed it. US federal civilian agencies must fix it by then.
Used in ransomware campaigns
Not known to CISA
EPSS score
0.73Higher than 99% of the CVEs EPSS scores. EPSS estimates the chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days.
EPSS when listed
0.20 on 10 March 2023EPSS on the day CISA listed it.
Public exploit
1 Metasploit module
Fix
Vendor advice: forums.plex.tvLinks below, from CISA's entry.

What CISA says to do

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

CISA's required action

What the flaw is

Plex Media Server contains a remote code execution vulnerability that allows an attacker with access to the server administrator's Plex account to upload a malicious file via the Camera Upload feature and have the media server execute it.

CISA's description

Deserialization of Untrusted Data in Plex Media Server on Windows allows a remote, authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary Python code.

The CVE record's description, from tenable

CVE published
8 May 2020
Assigned by
tenable
CVSS
7.2 High (CVSS 3.1, from CISA-ADP)
CWE-502
Deserialization of Untrusted Data
CISA SSVC, exploitation
active
CISA SSVC, automatable
no
CISA SSVC, technical impact
total

Timeline

  1. The CVE record was published.
  2. CISA added it to its list of exploited vulnerabilities.
  3. The US federal deadline to fix it.

Public exploits

Facts from Metasploit's module list and Exploit-DB's index; we never copy exploit code.

  • Metasploit: Plex Unpickle Dict Windows RCEexploit module, rank normal

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