What is CVE-2020-3946?

CVE-2020-3946 is a high-severity vulnerability in VMware Installbuilder, classified under Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs (XML Entity Expansion). CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2020-04-20.

How severe is CVE-2020-3946?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.

XXE in VMware Installbuilder

CVE-2020-3946

InstallBuilder AutoUpdate tool and regular installers enabling <checkForUpdates> built with versions earlier than 19.11 are vulnerable to Billion laughs attack (denial-of-service).

Published 2020-04-20 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.010 (62.7th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 63rd percentile — 62.7% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.010 · newest: 0.010 · change: 0.000

Affected products

VMware Installbuilder — versions All versions prior to version 19.11.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-776 — Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs (XML Entity Expansion)

References

blog.installbuilder.com/2019/12/configure-autoupdate-project-settings.html (Vendor Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-3946?: CVE-2020-3946 is a high-severity vulnerability in VMware Installbuilder, classified under Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs (XML Entity Expansion). CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2020-04-20.
How severe is CVE-2020-3946?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.