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Public proof of conceptFix available

CVE-2020-9480

A public proof of concept exists; no exploitation attested.

  • Published2020-06-23
  • Fixed in2.4.6
  • WeaknessCWE-306

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

In Apache Spark 2.4.5 and earlier, a standalone resource manager's master may be configured to require authentication (spark.authenticate) via a shared secret. When enabled, however, a specially-crafted RPC to the master can succeed in starting an application's resources on the Spark cluster, even without the shared key. This can be leveraged to execute shell commands on the host machine. This does not affect Spark clusters using other resource managers (YARN, Mesos, etc).

Timeline

dates in UTC
  1. 2020-06-2322:15CVE publishedNVD

Observed activity

isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-11-04 09:37 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-2020-9480?format=txt
  • CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2020-9480?format=csv
  • TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
  • The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.

Versions per branch

OSV · NVD
spark
BranchAffectedFixed in
2.4< 2.4.62.4.6
Apache spark
BranchAffectedFixed in
2.4≤ 2.4.5no fix published
Oracle business intelligence
BranchAffectedFixed in
5.5= 5.5.0.0.0no fix published

2 more products in the sources.

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

Distribution builds and vendor advisories

Packages from OSV.dev and products from the vendors' CSAF advisories.

version not verifiedVersions not verified: read as OSV.dev and the vendors publish them, not checked against each vendor's release list.

Vendor advisories

  • CVE-2020-9480 Red Hat Product Security

    apache-spark: RCE vulnerability in auth-enabled standalone master

Full record on NVD

Fix

  1. Update spark to 2.4.6

Advisories and patches

Detection

read 2026-11-03 22:42 UTC
Nuclei template
available
ProjectDiscovery
Exploit-DB
no entry
Exploit-DB
Proof-of-concept repositories
1 repository, unverifiedXiaoShaYu617/CVE-2020-9480
PoC-in-GitHub
Metasploit modules
none listed
Metasploit Framework

Sources

Identifiers

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
2020-06-23
Last Modified
2026-06-17
NVD status
Modified
GitHub Advisory
GHSA-wgx7-jwwm-cgjv

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-9480?

In Apache Spark 2.4.5 and earlier, a standalone resource manager's master may be configured to require authentication (spark.authenticate) via a shared secret. When enabled, however, a specially-crafted RPC to the master can succeed in starting an application's resources on the Spark cluster, even without the shared key. This can be leveraged to execute shell commands on the host machine. This does not affect Spark clusters using other resource managers (YARN, Mesos, etc).

Is CVE-2020-9480 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2020-9480 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 29.4% on 2026-11-03, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2020-9480?

CVE-2020-9480 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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Sources for this record