CVE-2020-8619: CVE-2020-8619: An asterisk character in an empty non-terminal can caus

CVE-2020-8619: An asterisk character in an empty non-terminal can cause an assertion failure in rbtdb.c

• Updated on 05 Aug 2021
• 3 Minutes to read
• Contributors

• Print

• Share

• Dark

  Light

CVE: CVE-2020-8619

Document version: 2.1

Posting date: 17 June 2020

Program impacted: BIND

Versions affected: BIND 9.11.14 -> 9.11.19, BIND 9.14.9 -> 9.14.12, BIND 9.16.0 -> 9.16.3. Also, versions 9.11.14-S1 -> 9.11.19-S1 of BIND Supported Preview Edition

Severity: Medium

Exploitable: Remotely, but only if records matching a certain pattern are present in a zone being served.

Description:

The asterisk character (“*”) is allowed in DNS zone files, where it is most commonly present as a wildcard at a terminal node of the Domain Name System graph. However, the RFCs do not require and BIND does not enforce that an asterisk character be present only at a terminal node.

A problem can occur when an asterisk is present in an empty non-terminal location within the DNS graph. If such a node exists, after a series of queries, named can reach an inconsistent state that results in the failure of an assertion check in rbtdb.c, followed by the program exiting due to the assertion failure.

Impact:

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.

CVSS Score: 4.3

CVSS Vector: AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

For more information on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System and to obtain your specific environmental score please visit: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln-metrics/cvss/v3-calculator?vector=AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C&version=3.1.

Workarounds:

None

Active exploits:

We are not aware of any active exploits.

Solution:

Upgrade to the patched release most closely related to your current version of BIND:

• BIND 9.11.20
• BIND 9.16.4

BIND Supported Preview Edition is a special feature preview branch of BIND provided to eligible ISC support customers.

• BIND 9.11.20-S1

Document revision history:

1.0 Early Notification, 10 June 2020
1.1 Corrected “Versions affected” to list Supported Preview Edition releases, 17 June 2020
2.0 Public disclosure, 17 June 2020
2.1 Fixed broken link, 5 August 2021

Related documents:

See our BIND 9 Security Vulnerability Matrix for a complete listing of security vulnerabilities and versions affected.

Do you still have questions? Questions regarding this advisory should go to [email protected]. To report a new issue, please encrypt your message using [email protected]’s PGP key which can be found here: https://www.isc.org/pgpkey/. If you are unable to use encrypted email, you may also report new issues at: https://www.isc.org/reportbug/.

Note:

ISC patches only currently supported versions. When possible we indicate EOL versions affected. (For current information on which versions are actively supported, please see https://www.isc.org/download/.)

ISC Security Vulnerability Disclosure Policy:

Details of our current security advisory policy and practice can be found in the ISC Software Defect and Security Vulnerability Disclosure Policy at https://kb.isc.org/docs/aa-00861.

The Knowledgebase article https://kb.isc.org/docs/cve-2020-8619 is the complete and official security advisory document.

Legal Disclaimer:

Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) is providing this notice on an “AS IS” basis. No warranty or guarantee of any kind is expressed in this notice and none should be implied. ISC expressly excludes and disclaims any warranties regarding this notice or materials referred to in this notice, including, without limitation, any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, absence of hidden defects, or of non-infringement. Your use or reliance on this notice or materials referred to in this notice is at your own risk. ISC may change this notice at any time. A stand-alone copy or paraphrase of the text of this document that omits the document URL is an uncontrolled copy. Uncontrolled copies may lack important information, be out of date, or contain factual errors.