CVE-2020-1971

Public on

Last Modified: UTC

Important Important Impact What does this mean?
5.9 CVSS v3 Base Score

Description

A null pointer dereference flaw was found in openssl. A remote attacker, able to control the arguments of the GENERAL_NAME_cmp function, could cause the application, compiled with openssl to crash resulting in a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.

Statement

This is a flaw in the GENERAL_NAME_cmp function of openssl which can be triggered when both its arguments are of the same type i.e. EDIPARTYNAME.

  1. Red Hat does not ship any applications compiled with openssl, which used the above function in a vulnerable way.

  2. OpenSSL itself uses the GENERAL_NAME_cmp function for two purposes, when comparing CRL distribution point names between an available CRL and a CRL distribution point embedded in an X509 certificate and when verifying that a timestamp response token signer matches the timestamp authority name (exposed via the API functions TS_RESP_verify_response and TS_RESP_verify_token). If an attacker can control both items being compared then that attacker could trigger a crash. For example, if the attacker can trick a client or server into checking a malicious certificate against a malicious CRL then a crash may be triggered.

Third party applications compiled with openssl using the function GENERAL_NAME_cmp in a vulnerable way are affected by this flaw.

GENERAL_NAME_cmp was added in 0.9.8k, therefore older versions of openssl are not affected by this flaw.

Mitigation

Applications not using the GENERAL_NAME_cmp of openssl are not vulnerable to this flaw. Even when this function is used, if the attacker can control both the arguments of this function, only then the attacker could trigger a crash.

Additional Information

External References

Content from www.cve.org is not included.https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-1971

Content from nvd.nist.gov is not included.https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-1971

Content from www.openssl.org is not included.https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20201208.txt

Affected Packages and Issued Red Hat Security Errata

Products / Services Components State Errata
JBCS 2.4.37 SP6 openssl Fixed RHSA-2021:0488
JBoss Core Services on RHEL 7 jbcs-httpd24-brotli Fixed RHSA-2021:0486
JBoss Core Services on RHEL 7 jbcs-httpd24-httpd Fixed RHSA-2021:0486
JBoss Core Services on RHEL 7 jbcs-httpd24-mod_cluster-native Fixed RHSA-2021:0486
JBoss Core Services on RHEL 7 jbcs-httpd24-mod_http2 Fixed RHSA-2021:0486
JBoss Core Services on RHEL 7 jbcs-httpd24-mod_jk Fixed RHSA-2021:0486
JBoss Core Services on RHEL 7 jbcs-httpd24-mod_md Fixed RHSA-2021:0486
JBoss Core Services on RHEL 7 jbcs-httpd24-mod_security Fixed RHSA-2021:0486
JBoss Core Services on RHEL 7 jbcs-httpd24-nghttp2 Fixed RHSA-2021:0486
JBoss Core Services on RHEL 7 jbcs-httpd24-openssl Fixed RHSA-2021:0486
Unless explicitly stated as not affected, all previous versions of packages in any minor update stream of a product listed here should be assumed vulnerable, although may not have been subject to full analysis.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

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 Authorities (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications ).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown Red Hat NVD
CVSS v3 Base Score 5.9 5.9
Attack Vector Network Network
Attack Complexity High High
Privileges Required None None
User Interaction None None
Scope Unchanged Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact None None
Integrity Impact None None
Availability Impact High High

CVSS v3 Vector

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

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

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank the OpenSSL project for reporting this issue. Upstream acknowledges David Benjamin (Google) as the original reporter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

 For open source software shipped by multiple vendors, the CVSS base scores may vary for each vendor's version depending on the version they ship, how they ship it, the platform, and even how the software is compiled. This makes scoring of vulnerabilities difficult for third-party vulnerability databases such as NVD that only provide a single CVSS base score for each vulnerability. Red Hat scores reflect how a vulnerability affects our products specifically.

For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/762393.

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?
  • "Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.
  • "Affected" means that our Analysis Team has determined that this product is affected by this vulnerability and might release a fix to address this in the near future.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

 A "will not fix" status means that a fix for an affected product version is not planned or not possible due to complexity, which may create additional risk.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

 A deferred status means that a fix for an affected product version is not guaranteed due to higher-priority development work.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
  • Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on their complexity or limited lifecycle support. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.

What is a mitigation?

 A mitigation is an action that can be taken to reduce the impact of a security vulnerability, without deploying any fixes.

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

 The listed products were found to include one or more of the components that this vulnerability affects. These products underwent a thorough evaluation to determine their affectedness by this vulnerability. Note that layered products (such as container-based offerings) that consume affected components from any of the products listed in this table may be affected and are not represented.

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

 In order to maintain code stability and compatibility, Red Hat usually does not rebase packages to entirely new versions. Instead, we backport fixes and new features to an older version of the package we distribute. This can result in some security scanners that only consider the package version to report the package as vulnerable. To avoid this, we suggest that you use an approved vulnerability scanner from our This content is not included.Red Hat Vulnerability Scanner Certification program.

My product is listed as "Out of Support Scope". What does this mean?

 When a product is listed as "Out of Support Scope", it means a vulnerability with the impact level assigned to this CVE is no longer covered by its current support lifecycle phase. The product has been identified to contain the impacted component, but analysis to determine whether it is affected or not by this vulnerability was not performed. The product should be assumed to be affected. Customers are advised to apply any mitigation options documented on this page, consider removing or disabling the impacted component, or upgrade to a supported version of the product that has an update available.