CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-28638 — Dyne Tomb security vulnerability

Critical CVSS 9.8

ask_password in Tomb 2.0 through 2.7 returns a warning when pinentry-curses is used and $DISPLAY is non-empty, causing affected users' files to be encrypted with "tomb {W] Detected DISPLAY, but only pinentry-curses is found." as the encryption key.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.1)
Published
2020-11-13
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-287

Affected products

  • dyne / tomb

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.