# CVE-2020-13595: Denial of service in n/a

> An attacker within radio range can disable the BLE stack on ESP32 devices by sending crafted packets that trigger an assertion failure.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 31 Aug 2020
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-h45x-9jw8-5x6p

## What is CVE-2020-13595?

CVE-2020-13595 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 31 Aug 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) controller implementation in Espressif ESP-IDF 4.0 through 4.2 (for ESP32 devices) returns the wrong number of completed BLE packets and triggers a reachable assertion on the host stack when receiving a packet with an MIC failure. An attacker within radio range can silently trigger the assertion (which disables the target's BLE stack) by sending a crafted sequence of BLE packets.

Weakness: CWE-617 (Reachable Assertion)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-13595?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Espressif Esp-Idf.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-13595?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-13595 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-13595 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-13595 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2026-45328](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-45328/): ESF-IDF: Out-of-Bounds Write in ESP-TEE Secure Service Wrappers (critical 9.3)
- [CVE-2024-53406](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-53406/): Auth bypass in n/a (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2021-28139](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-28139/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2024-33453](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-33453/): Information disclosure in n/a (high 8.1)
- [CVE-2019-12587](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-12587/): Weak cryptography in n/a (high 8.1)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-13595 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-13595 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 31 Aug 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-13595 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-2020-13595/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-13595/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-13595
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-13595
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-13595

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-13595/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.