Security advisory
An issue was discovered in LinuxTV xawtv before 3.107. The function dev_open() in v4l-conf.c does not perform sufficient checks to prevent an unprivileged caller of the program from opening unintended filesystem paths. This allows a local attacker with access to the v4l-conf setuid-root program to test for the existence of arbitrary files and to trigger an open on arbitrary files with mode O_RDWR. To achieve this, relative path components need to be added to the device path, as demonstrated by a v4l-conf -c /dev/../root/.bash_history command.
- Products
- Not specified
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- Not specified
- CVEs
- CVE-2020-13696
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 1 Nov 2026, 06:21 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
An issue was discovered in LinuxTV xawtv before 3.107. The function dev_open() in v4l-conf.c does not perform sufficient checks to prevent an unprivileged caller of the program from opening unintended filesystem paths. This allows a local attacker with access to the v4l-conf setuid-root program to test for the existence of arbitrary files and to trigger an open on arbitrary files with mode O_RDWR. To achieve this, relative path components need to be added to the device path, as demonstrated by a v4l-conf -c /dev/../root/.bash_history command.
osv:CVE-2020-13696
Complete source record
{
"id": "53076685345b45dba714158cd36fe36855493d0eb693215a670c02d761d04f9b",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-13696",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "CVE-2020-13696",
"summary": "An issue was discovered in LinuxTV xawtv before 3.107. The function dev_open() in v4l-conf.c does not perform sufficient checks to prevent an unprivileged caller of the program from opening unintended filesystem paths. This allows a local attacker with access to the v4l-conf setuid-root program to test for the existence of arbitrary files and to trigger an open on arbitrary files with mode O_RDWR. To achieve this, relative path components need to be added to the device path, as demonstrated by a v4l-conf -c /dev/../root/.bash_history command.",
"evidence": "osv:CVE-2020-13696",
"products": [],
"severity": "medium",
"structured": {
"id": "CVE-2020-13696",
"aliases": [
"CVE-2020-13696"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V3",
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"repo": "https://git.linuxtv.org/xawtv3.git",
"type": "GIT",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "8e3feea862db68d3ca0886f46cd99fab45d2db7c"
}
],
"database_specific": {
"extracted_events": [
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:linuxtv:xawtv:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "3.107"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
}
]
}
}
],
"versions": [
"xawtv-3.106",
"xawtv-3.105",
"xawtv-3.104",
"xawtv-3.103",
"xawtv-3.102",
"xawtv-3.100",
"xawtv-3.99.rc6",
"xawtv-3.99.rc5",
"xawtv-3.99.rc4",
"xawtv-3.99.rc3",
"xawtv-3.99.rc2",
"xawtv-3.99.rc1",
"xawtv-3.98",
"xawtv-3.97"
],
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2020-13696.json"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-24T10:30:38.277773230Z",
"provider": "osv",
"references": [
"https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ELOXU5LXQSQOXX64D4BICZV3TQWOBXHC/",
"https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/I7XWAO7W2DGA6M52JGK2TDWUGF62Q2KY/",
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/06/msg00018.html",
"https://usn.ubuntu.com/4518-1/",
"https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2020-13696",
"https://git.linuxtv.org/xawtv3.git/commit/?id=31f31f9cbaee7be806cba38e0ff5431bd44b20a3",
"https://git.linuxtv.org/xawtv3.git/commit/?id=36dc44e68e5886339b4a0fbe3f404fb1a4fd2292",
"https://git.linuxtv.org/xawtv3.git/commit/?id=8e3feea862db68d3ca0886f46cd99fab45d2db7c"
],
"provider_metadata": {
"unresolved_ranges": [
{
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:*:*:*:esm:*:*:*"
],
"vendor_product": "canonical:ubuntu_linux",
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "16.04"
},
{
"last_affected": "16.04"
}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
}
]
},
{
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
],
"vendor_product": "debian:debian_linux",
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "8.0"
},
{
"last_affected": "8.0"
}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
}
]
},
{
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:31:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:32:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
],
"vendor_product": "fedoraproject:fedora",
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "31"
},
{
"last_affected": "31"
},
{
"introduced": "32"
},
{
"last_affected": "32"
}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
}
]
},
{
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:a:opensuse:backports_sle:15.0:sp1:*:*:*:*:*:*"
],
"vendor_product": "opensuse:backports_sle",
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "15.0-sp1"
},
{
"last_affected": "15.0-sp1"
}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
}
]
},
{
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:leap:15.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
],
"vendor_product": "opensuse:leap",
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "15.1"
},
{
"last_affected": "15.1"
}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
}
]
}
]
}
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2020-13696",
"evidence": "/id"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 434399,
"published_at": "2020-06-08T17:15:10.16+00:00"
}