CVE-2020-17397: Parallels Desktop

High severity, CVSS 8.2. EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Parallels Desktop 15.1.4. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute high-privileged code on the target guest system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the handling of network packets. The issue results from the lack of proper validation of user-supplied data, which can result in a memory corruption condition. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute code in the context of the hypervisor. Was ZDI-CAN-11253.

Affected products

• Parallels Parallels Desktop: before 16.0.0 (fixed in 16.0.0)

Published 2020-08-25. Last modified 2026-06-17.