What is CVE-2020-28941?

CVE-2020-28941 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, classified as a Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference flaw (CWE-763). CVE-2020-28941 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2020-28941?

CVE-2020-28941 has a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, rated Medium severity. The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

Is there a patch available for CVE-2020-28941?

No patch is currently available for CVE-2020-28941. Monitor the NIST NVD and your Linux distribution's security advisories for updates.

Is CVE-2020-28941 actively exploited?

CVE-2020-28941 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

What is Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference (CWE-763)?

The product attempts to return a memory resource to the system but calls the wrong release function. See MITRE CWE for full details: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/763.html

CVE-2020-28941

Medium

An issue was discovered in drivers/accessibility/speakup/spk_ttyio.c in the Linux kernel through 5.9.9. Local attackers on systems with the speakup driver could cause a local denial of service attack, aka CID-d41227544427. This occurs because of an invalid free when the line discipline is used more than once.

Package Linux Kernel

Published 2020-11-19

Last modified 2026-05-29

CVSS version 3.1

Patch available

Awaiting data

CVSS 3.1 score

5.5

out of 10

Medium

Attack Vector

Local

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

Low

User Interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

Low

Integrity

None

Availability

High

Vector string

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Weakness type

CWE-763

CVE-2020-28941 is a Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference vulnerability

What is Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference?

The product attempts to return a memory resource to the system but calls the wrong release function. Learn more on MITRE CWE

References

The following references provide additional information about CVE-2020-28941 including vendor advisories, patch commits, exploit details, and third-party analysis. Links are sourced from the NIST NVD database.

Debian Security
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00015.html

Mailing List Third Party Advisory
Lists
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/TITJQPYDWZ4NB2ONJWUXW75KSQIPF35T/
Lists
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ZF4OGZPKTAJJXWHPIFP3LHEWWEMR5LPT/
Kernel patch commit
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2020/11/19/5
Patch
Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=d4122754442799187d5d537a9c039a49a67e57f1
Patch
Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/tty.git/commit/?h=tty-linus&id=d4122754442799187d5d537a9c039a49a67e57f1
Patch

5 patch commits total View all on NVD

Details

CVE ID CVE-2020-28941

Severity Medium

CVSS score 5.5 / 10

CVSS version 3.1

Published 2020-11-19

Modified 2026-05-29

KEV No

Patch Awaiting data

Package linux

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-28941?

CVE-2020-28941 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10 , classified as a Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference flaw (CWE-763) . CVE-2020-28941 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
What is the CVSS score for CVE-2020-28941?

CVE-2020-28941 has a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, rated Medium severity (CVSS 3.1). The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
Is there a patch available for CVE-2020-28941?

No patch is currently available for CVE-2020-28941. Monitor the NIST NVD and your Linux distribution's security advisories for updates.
Is CVE-2020-28941 actively exploited?

No — CVE-2020-28941 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.
What is Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference (CWE-763)?

The product attempts to return a memory resource to the system but calls the wrong release function. View CWE-763 on MITRE CWE →