CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-12638 — Espressif Esp-Idf security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 6.8

An encryption-bypass issue was discovered on Espressif ESP-IDF devices through 4.2, ESP8266_NONOS_SDK devices through 3.0.3, and ESP8266_RTOS_SDK devices through 3.3. Broadcasting forged beacon frames forces a device to change its authentication mode to OPEN, effectively disabling its 802.11 encryption.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
6.8 (3.1)
Published
2020-07-23
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-287, CWE-319

Affected products

  • espressif / esp-idf
  • espressif / esp8266_nonos_sdk
  • espressif / esp8266_rtos_sdk

Matched remediation archetype

Authentication bypass and missing authentication

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map every affected endpoint and protocol path, including alternate ports, legacy routes, recovery flows, service accounts, and machine-to-machine access.
  • Confirm which deployments enable the affected authentication mode and whether the interface is reachable from untrusted networks.
  • Review session, token, credential, and proxy trust configuration without attempting account takeover.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and centralize fail-closed authentication before protected request handling.
  • Remove default or embedded credentials, rotate affected secrets and sessions, and bind authentication decisions to the intended audience and channel.
  • Add negative tests for alternate routes, malformed or absent credentials, recovery flows, and proxy-derived identity.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.