# CVE-2019-20016: Denial of service in n/a

> Attackers can cause a denial of service via stack consumption in libmysofa due to unrestricted recursive function calls.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 27 Dec 2019
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2019-20016, GHSA-7m36-g6v3-rhwr, UBUNTU-CVE-2019-20016

## What is CVE-2019-20016?

CVE-2019-20016 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 27 Dec 2019. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

libmysofa before 2019-11-24 does not properly restrict recursive function calls, as demonstrated by reports of stack consumption in readOHDRHeaderMessageDatatype in dataobject.c and directblockRead in fractalhead.c. NOTE: a download of v0.9 after 2019-12-06 should fully remediate this issue.

Weakness: CWE-787 (Out-of-bounds Write)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-20016?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Symonics Libmysofa.

## How do I fix CVE-2019-20016?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2019-20016 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-20016 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2019-10672](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-10672/): Integer overflow in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2019-20063](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-20063/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 8.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2019-20016 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2019-20016 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 27 Dec 2019. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-20016 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-20016/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-20016/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-20016
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-20016
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2019-20016

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-20016/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.