CVE-2020-15704: Canonical Ppp

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

The modprobe child process in the ./debian/patches/load_ppp_generic_if_needed patch file incorrectly handled module loading. A local non-root attacker could exploit the MODPROBE_OPTIONS environment variable to read arbitrary root files. Fixed in 2.4.5-5ubuntu1.4, 2.4.5-5.1ubuntu2.3+esm2, 2.4.7-1+2ubuntu1.16.04.3, 2.4.7-2+2ubuntu1.3, 2.4.7-2+4.1ubuntu5.1, 2.4.7-2+4.1ubuntu6. Was ZDI-CAN-11504.

Affected products

• Canonical Ppp: before 2.4.7-1\+ubuntu1.16.04.3 (fixed in 2.4.7-1\+ubuntu1.16.04.3); before 2.4.7-2\+2ubuntu1.3 (fixed in 2.4.7-2\+2ubuntu1.3); before 2.4.7-2\+4.1ubuntu5.1 (fixed in 2.4.7-2\+4.1ubuntu5.1); before 2.4.5-5ubuntu1.4 (fixed in 2.4.5-5ubuntu1.4); before 2.4.5-5.1ubuntu2.3\+esm2 (fixed in 2.4.5-5.1ubuntu2.3\+esm2)

Published 2020-09-01. Last modified 2026-06-17.