CVE-2020-6195

What is this vulnerability?

CVE-2020-6195 is categorized as a critical Cleartext Transmission flaw with a CVSS base score of 9.8. Based on our vulnerability intelligence, this issue occurs when the application fails to securely handle untrusted data boundaries.

SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence Platform (CMC), version 4.1, 4.2, shows cleartext password in the response, leading to Information Disclosure. It involves social engineering in order to gain access to system and If password is known, it would give administrative rights to the attacker to read/modify delete the data and rights within the system.

This architectural defect enables adversaries to bypass intended security controls, directly manipulating the application's execution state or data layer. Immediate strategic intervention is required.

Risk Assessment

Impact on Systems

✅ Credential Theft: Exposed secrets enable unauthorized access to infrastructure, cloud services, and third-party integrations.

✅ Compliance Violation: Leaking PII or credentials may violate GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and SOC 2 requirements.

✅ Supply Chain Risk: Compromised credentials in public repositories can propagate to downstream consumers.

How to Fix and Mitigate CVE-2020-6195

1. Apply Vendor Patches: Upgrade affected components to their latest, non-vulnerable versions immediately.
2. Implement Input Validation: Ensure all user-supplied data is validated, sanitized, and type-checked before processing.
3. Deploy Runtime Protection: Use Precogs continuous monitoring to detect exploitation attempts in real time.
4. Audit Dependencies: Review and update all third-party libraries and transitive dependencies.

Defending with Precogs AI

Precogs PII & Secrets Scanner automatically identifies hardcoded credentials, exposed API keys, and personally identifiable information leaks across repositories, CI/CD pipelines, and deployed artifacts.

Use Precogs to continuously scan your codebase, binaries, APIs, and infrastructure for this vulnerability class and related attack patterns. Our AI-powered detection engine combines static analysis with threat intelligence to identify exploitable weaknesses before attackers do.

Start scanning with Precogs →

Vulnerability Code Signature

Attack Data Flow

Vulnerable Code Pattern

// ❌ VULNERABLE: Hardcoded credential & PII Leak
public class Config {
    // Taint sink: secret embedded in code
    public static final String API_KEY = "sk_live_1234567890abcdef";
}

// ... API Response leaks full user details including SSN ...

Secure Code Pattern

// ✅ SECURE: Environment variables & Data Masking
public class Config {
    // Sanitized configuration
    public static final String API_KEY = System.getenv("STRIPE_API_KEY");
}

// ... API Response masks SSN and restricts PII exposure ...

How Precogs Detects This

Precogs PII & Secrets Scanner continuously monitors codebases and API responses for hardcoded secrets and unintended PII exposure.