CVE-2020-8617

high
Published — · Modified —
CVSS v3
CVSS v2
VIR risk
8.0

Description

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.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood
20%
Patch ETA

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: suse — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-8617.html

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: debian — https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2020-8617

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: arch — https://security.archlinux.org/ASA-202005-13

OS impact

OSVersionStatusFixed in
debian debianbookwormfixed1:9.16.3-1
debian debianbullseyefixed1:9.16.3-1
debian debianforkyfixed1:9.16.3-1
debian debiansidfixed1:9.16.3-1
debian debiantrixiefixed1:9.16.3-1
arch archfixed9.16.3-1
suse slesaffected

References

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.