CVE-2019-20633

Description

A vulnerability was found in GNU Patch due to a double-free issue in the another_hunk function within pch.c, where an attacker could exploit this flaw to cause memory corruption, leading the application to crash and resulting in a denial of service.

Statement

This vulnerability was rated as LOW severity because it causes the application to crash, it doesn’t compromise system security, it can disrupt the application's normal function.

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 Score3.35.5N/A
Attack VectorLocalLocalN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredLowNoneN/A
User InteractionNoneRequiredN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityNoneNoneN/A
Integrity ImpactNoneNoneN/A
Availability ImpactLowHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

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

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Integrity

Technical Impact: Modify Memory

The use of previously freed memory may corrupt valid data, if the memory area in question has been allocated and used properly elsewhere.

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

If chunk consolidation occurs after the use of previously freed data, the process may crash when invalid data is used as chunk information.

Confidentiality

Technical Impact: Read Memory

Read operations on freed memory can sometimes leak sensitive information instead of causing a crash

Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

If malicious data is entered before chunk consolidation can take place, it may be possible to take advantage of a write-what-where primitive to execute arbitrary code. If the newly allocated data happens to hold a class, in C++ for example, various function pointers may be scattered within the heap data. If one of these function pointers is overwritten with an address to valid shellcode, execution of arbitrary code can be achieved.

Frequently Asked Questions

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