CVE-2020-8619

Description

A flaw was found in bind when an asterisk character is present in an empty non-terminal location within the DNS graph. This flaw could trigger an assertion failure, causing bind to crash. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.

Statement

Based on upstream affected versions, this flaw only affects the versions of bind shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.

Mitigation

As per upstream advisory: Unless a nameserver is providing authoritative service for one or more zones and at least one zone contains an empty non-terminal entry containing an asterisk ("*") character this defect cannot be encountered.

A would-be attacker who is allowed to change zone content could theoretically introduce such a record in order to exploit this condition to cause denial of service, though we consider the use of this vector unlikely because any such attack would require a significant privilege level and be easily traceable.

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).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score4.94.9N/A
Attack VectorNetworkNetworkN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredHighHighN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityNoneNoneN/A
Integrity ImpactNoneNoneN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/A

Vector

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

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

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

An attacker that can trigger an assert statement can still lead to a denial of service if the relevant code can be triggered by an attacker, and if the scope of the assert() extends beyond the attacker's own session.

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank ISC for reporting this issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

Want to get errata notifications? Sign up here.