CVE-2020-9283

HIGH

golang.org/x/crypto/ssh < 0.0.0-20200220183623-bac4c82f6975 - Denial of Service via Cryptographic Signature Verification

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Exploitation Summary

EIP tracks 2 public exploits for CVE-2020-9283. PoCs published by Mark Adams, brompwnie.

AI-analyzed exploit summary This PoC exploits a denial-of-service vulnerability in Go SSH servers by sending a malformed authentication request with an invalid SSH key and empty signature, causing a panic on the remote server.

Description

golang.org/x/crypto before v0.0.0-20200220183623-bac4c82f6975 for Go allows a panic during signature verification in the golang.org/x/crypto/ssh package. A client can attack an SSH server that accepts public keys. Also, a server can attack any SSH client.

Exploits (2)

exploitdb WORKING POC
by Mark Adams · pythondoslinux
https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/48121

This PoC exploits a denial-of-service vulnerability in Go SSH servers by sending a malformed authentication request with an invalid SSH key and empty signature, causing a panic on the remote server.

Classification
Working Poc 100%
Attack Type
Dos
Complexity
Trivial
Reliability
Reliable
Target: Go SSH servers 0.0.2
No auth needed
Prerequisites: Network access to the target SSH server
devstral-2 · analyzed Feb 16, 2026 Full analysis →
nomisec WORKING POC 5 stars
by brompwnie · poc
https://github.com/brompwnie/CVE-2020-9283

This repository contains a functional Go-based exploit for CVE-2020-9283, which triggers a panic in Go SSH servers by sending a malformed Ed25519 public key, leading to a Denial of Service (DoS). The exploit modifies the Go crypto/ssh library to include a hardcoded payload that causes the panic.

Classification
Working Poc 95%
Attack Type
Dos
Complexity
Moderate
Reliability
Reliable
Target: Go SSH servers using golang.org/x/crypto/ssh
No auth needed
Prerequisites: Go 1.11 or newer · Modified Go crypto/ssh library files
devstral-2 · analyzed Feb 18, 2026 Full analysis →

Scores

CVSS v3 7.5
EPSS 0.1868
EPSS Percentile 95.4%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Details

CWE
CWE-347
Status published
Products (3)
debian/debian_linux 9.0
golang/package_ssh 0.0.0-20200220183623-bac4c82f6975
x/crypto 0 - 0.0.0-20200220183623-bac4c82f6975Go
Published Feb 20, 2020
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026