What is CVE-2021-20079?

CVE-2021-20079 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Tenable Nessus. CVSS score: 6.7/10. Published 2021-06-29.

How severe is CVE-2021-20079?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.7 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Tenable Nessus

CVE-2021-20079

Nessus versions 8.13.2 and earlier were found to contain a privilege escalation vulnerability which could allow a Nessus administrator user to upload a specially crafted file that could lead to gaining administrator privileges on the Nessus host.

Published 2021-06-29 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.7 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.006 (47.0th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 47th percentile — 47.0% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.006 · newest: 0.006 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Tenable Nessus
Nessus — versions Nessus 8.13.2 and earlier

References

www.tenable.com/security/tns-2021-07 (Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-20079?: CVE-2021-20079 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Tenable Nessus. CVSS score: 6.7/10. Published 2021-06-29.
How severe is CVE-2021-20079?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.7 out of 10.