CVE-2017-20005

Description

A flaw was found in nginx. When a date exists earlier than the standard epoch, as demonstrated by a file with a modification date in 1969 that causes a negative number to be treated as an unsigned integer, the year field becomes five characters long, larger than is allocated for, leading to a buffer overflow. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.

Statement

This issue did not affect the versions of nginx as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and Red Hat Software Collection 3 as they already have the patch applied.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score9.89.89.8
Attack VectorNetworkNetworkNetwork
Attack ComplexityLowLowLow
Privileges RequiredNoneNoneNone
User InteractionNoneNoneNone
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedUnchanged
ConfidentialityHighHighHigh
Integrity ImpactHighHighHigh
Availability ImpactHighHighHigh

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Instability

This weakness can generally lead to undefined behavior and therefore crashes. When the calculated result is used for resource allocation, this weakness can cause too many (or too few) resources to be allocated, possibly enabling crashes if the product requests more resources than can be provided.

Integrity

Technical Impact: Modify Memory

If the value in question is important to data (as opposed to flow), simple data corruption has occurred. Also, if the overflow/wraparound results in other conditions such as buffer overflows, further memory corruption may occur.

Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Bypass Protection Mechanism

This weakness can sometimes trigger buffer overflows, which can be used to execute arbitrary code. This is usually outside the scope of the product's implicit security policy.

Availability,Other

Technical Impact: Alter Execution Logic; DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)

If the overflow/wraparound occurs in a loop index variable, this could cause the loop to terminate at the wrong time - too early, too late, or not at all (i.e., infinite loops). With too many iterations, some loops could consume too many resources such as memory, file handles, etc., possibly leading to a crash or other DoS.

Access Control

Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism

If integer values are used in security-critical decisions, such as calculating quotas or allocation limits, integer overflows can be used to cause an incorrect security decision.

Frequently Asked Questions

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