cbcvebase.
CVE-2020-8617
published 2020-05-19

CVE-2020-8617: Using a specially-crafted message, an attacker may potentially cause a BIND server to reach an inconsistent state if the attacker knows (or successfully…

PriorityP263medium5.9CVSS 3.1
AVNACHPRNUINSUCNINAH
EXPLOIT
EPSS
93.42%
99.8th percentile
Using a specially-crafted message, an attacker may potentially cause a BIND server to reach an inconsistent state if the attacker knows (or successfully guesses) the name of a TSIG key used by the server. Since BIND, by default, configures a local session key even on servers whose configuration does not otherwise make use of it, almost all current BIND servers are vulnerable. In releases of BIND dating from March 2018 and after, an assertion check in tsig.c detects this inconsistent state and deliberately exits. Prior to the introduction of the check the server would continue operating in an inconsistent state, with potentially harmful results.

Affected

39 ranges· showing 25
VendorProductVersion rangeFixed in
canonicalubuntu_linux
canonicalubuntu_linux
canonicalubuntu_linux
canonicalubuntu_linux
canonicalubuntu_linux
canonicalubuntu_linux
debianbind9< bind9 1:9.16.3-1 (bookworm)bind9 1:9.16.3-1 (bookworm)
debiandebian_linux
debiandebian_linux
debiandebian_linux
fedoraprojectfedora
fedoraprojectfedora
iscbind
iscbind
iscbind
iscbind
iscbind
iscbind
iscbind
iscbind
iscbind
iscbind9.0.0 – 9.11.18
iscbind9.12.0 – 9.12.4
iscbind9.13.0 – 9.13.7
iscbind9.14.0 – 9.14.11

Detection & IOCsextracted from sources · hover to see the quote

pathtsig.c
port53/UDP
commandDNSRRTSIG(rrname="local-ddns", algo_name="hmac-sha256", rclass=255, mac_len=0, mac_data="", time_signed=0, fudge=300, error=16)
  • Detect DNS queries over UDP port 53 containing a TSIG resource record with mac_len=0 and error=16 (BADTIME), which is the crafted payload used to trigger the assertion failure in tsig.c.
  • Monitor for BIND named process crashes (assertion failure exits) originating from tsig.c, which indicate exploitation attempts against CVE-2020-8617.
  • Flag DNS messages containing TSIG records where the attacker uses the well-known default session key name 'local-ddns' (trivially guessable internal TSIG session key name).
  • ·Almost all BIND servers are vulnerable by default because BIND automatically configures a local session key (named 'local-ddns') even when the configuration does not explicitly use TSIG, making the key name trivially guessable.
  • ·As a workaround, set a random/non-guessable value for 'session-keyname' in named.conf to prevent attackers from guessing the TSIG key name required to trigger the vulnerability.

CVSS provenance

nvdv3.15.9MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
nvdv2.04.3MEDIUMAV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
osv8.6HIGH
vendor_ubuntu8.6HIGH
vendor_debian7.5HIGH
vendor_redhat7.5HIGH
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