# CVE-2020-14150: Denial of service in n/a

> Attackers can cause a denial of service via application crash in GNU Bison when processing untrusted input under specific compiler conditions.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 15 Jun 2020
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2020-14150, GHSA-wqmg-pp5q-5hqr, JLSEC-2026-117, MGASA-2021-0023, UBUNTU-CVE-2020-14150

## What is CVE-2020-14150?

CVE-2020-14150 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 15 Jun 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

GNU Bison before 3.5.4 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash). NOTE: there is a risk only if Bison is used with untrusted input, and an observed bug happens to cause unsafe behavior with a specific compiler/architecture. The bug reports were intended to show that a crash may occur in Bison itself, not that a crash may occur in code that is generated by Bison.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-14150?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Gnu Bison.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-14150?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2020-14150 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-14150 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2026-56389](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-56389/): Arbitrary Command Execution in GNU Bison (medium 6.8)
- [CVE-2020-24240](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-24240/): Use after free in n/a (medium 5.5)
- [CVE-2026-56390](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-56390/): Arbitrary Output Location Change in GNU Bison (medium 4.6)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-14150 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-14150 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 15 Jun 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-2020-14150 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-2020-14150/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-14150/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-14150
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-14150
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-14150

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-14150/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.