# CVE-2020-14258: Denial of service in HCL Notes

> Remote attackers can cause a denial of service in HCL Notes clients by sending specially crafted emails that hang the application.

- **Severity:** High 7.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/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:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 21 Nov 2020
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-xjww-8m9x-vvj8

## What is CVE-2020-14258?

CVE-2020-14258 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in HCL Notes, published on 21 Nov 2020. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

HCL Notes is susceptible to a Denial of Service vulnerability caused by improper validation of user-supplied input. A remote unauthenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability using a specially-crafted email message to hang the client. Versions 9, 10 and 11 are affected.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-14258?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Hcltech Notes.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-14258?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-14258 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-14258 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-14258 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in HCL Notes

- [CVE-2022-44751](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-44751/): HCL Notes is susceptible to a stack based buffer overflow vulnerability in lasr.dll in Micro Focus KeyView (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2022-44753](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-44753/): HCL Notes is susceptible to a stack based buffer overflow vulnerability in wp6sr.dll in Micro Focus KeyView (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2022-44755](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-44755/): HCL Notes is susceptible to a stack based buffer overflow vulnerability in lasr.dll in Micro Focus KeyView (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-14224](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-14224/): Memory corruption in HCL Notes (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-14268](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-14268/): Memory corruption in HCL Notes (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-14258 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-14258 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in HCL Notes, published on 21 Nov 2020. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-14258 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: HCL Notes. 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-2020-14258/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-14258/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-14258
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-14258
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-14258

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-14258/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.