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No exploitation reportedFix available

CVE-2020-4043

No exploitation reported by the sources we read.

  • Published2020-06-10
  • Fixed in1.6.0
  • WeaknessCWE-502

Am I affected?

With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.

Description

phpMussel from versions 1.0.0 and less than 1.6.0 has an unserialization vulnerability in PHP's phar wrapper. Uploading a specially crafted file to an affected version allows arbitrary code execution (discovered, tested, and confirmed by myself), so the risk factor should be regarded as very high. Newer phpMussel versions don't use PHP's phar wrapper, and are therefore unaffected. This has been fixed in version 1.6.0.

Timeline

dates in UTC
  1. 2020-06-1020:15CVE publishedNVD

Observed activity

isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-10-23 21:37 UTC
Indicators tagged with this CVE, per day0 indicators over 7 days
Block these indicators
  • Firewall list (EDL, text): https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2020-4043?format=txt
  • CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2020-4043?format=csv
  • TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
  • The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.

Versions per branch

NVD · OSV
Phpmussel project phpmussel
BranchAffectedFixed in
1.x≥ 1.0.0, < 1.6.01.6.0

as publishedRanges as NVD and OSV publish them; a distribution’s build can be fixed under an older number.

Fix

  1. Update Phpmussel project phpmussel to 1.6.0

Advisories and patches

Detection

Nuclei template
none so far
ProjectDiscovery
Exploit-DB
no entry
Exploit-DB
Proof-of-concept repositories
none listed
PoC-in-GitHub

Sources

  • CNACVSS 3.17.7read 2026-10-23
  • NVDCVSS 3.19.8read 2026-10-23
  • NVDCVSS 2.07.5read 2026-10-23
  • CNAweakness (CWE)CWE-502read 2026-10-23
  • FIRST EPSSEPSS score2.6 %2026-10-22
  • OSVaffected packages—

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Published
2020-06-10
Last Modified
2026-06-17
NVD status
Modified

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-4043?

phpMussel from versions 1.0.0 and less than 1.6.0 has an unserialization vulnerability in PHP's phar wrapper. Uploading a specially crafted file to an affected version allows arbitrary code execution (discovered, tested, and confirmed by myself), so the risk factor should be regarded as very high. Newer phpMussel versions don't use PHP's phar wrapper, and are therefore unaffected. This has been fixed in version 1.6.0.

Is CVE-2020-4043 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2020-4043 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 2.6% on 2026-10-22, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2020-4043?

CVE-2020-4043 has a CVSS v3 base score of 9.8 (CRITICAL severity), with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

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