CVE-2020-14385 Denial of service in kernel

Medium 5.5 Published 15 Sep 2020 Updated 4 Aug 2024

A flaw in the XFS filesystem metadata validator allows a local user to trigger a filesystem shutdown, causing a denial of service.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Not needed
Attackable: Local or same network only
Victim action needed: A user has to click or open something
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2020-14385?

CVE-2020-14385 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 15 Sep 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel before 5.9-rc4. A failure of the file system metadata validator in XFS can cause an inode with a valid, user-creatable extended attribute to be flagged as corrupt. This can lead to the filesystem being shutdown, or otherwise rendered inaccessible until it is remounted, leading to a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.

Weakness: CWE-131

Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-14385?

It affects 3 products.

Linux distribution packages (8)

`kpatch-patch-3_10_0-1160` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::server	All versions	`0:1-1.el7`
`kpatch-patch-3_10_0-1160-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::server	All versions	`0:1-1.el7`
`kpatch-patch-3_10_0-1160_2_1` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::server	All versions	`0:1-1.el7`
`kpatch-patch-3_10_0-1160_2_1-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::server	All versions	`0:1-1.el7`
`kpatch-patch-3_10_0-1160_2_2` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::server	All versions	`0:1-1.el7`
`kpatch-patch-3_10_0-1160_2_2-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::server	All versions	`0:1-1.el7`
`kpatch-patch-3_10_0-1160_6_1` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::server	All versions	`0:1-1.el7`
`kpatch-patch-3_10_0-1160_6_1-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:7::server	All versions	`0:1-1.el7`

Products include Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2020-14385?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2020-14385 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-14385 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Canonical Ubuntu Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2020-14385, GHSA-3vmf-5cc3-6gf8, RHSA-2020:5050, UBUNTU-CVE-2020-14385.