# CVE-2020-22916: Denial of service in n/a

> Attackers can cause denial of service by decompressing a crafted file in the XZ library, though the vendor disputes the severity.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/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:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 22 Aug 2023
- **Updated:** 29 Oct 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-8rm5-v9qv-hvcc

## What is CVE-2020-22916?

CVE-2020-22916 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 22 Aug 2023. 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

An issue discovered in XZ 5.2.5 allows attackers to cause a denial of service via decompression of a crafted file. NOTE: the vendor disputes the claims of "endless output" and "denial of service" because decompression of the 17,486 bytes always results in 114,881,179 bytes, which is often a reasonable size increase.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-22916?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Tukaani Xz.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-22916?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-22916 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-22916 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-22916 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2024-3094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-3094/): Xz: malicious code in distributed source (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2015-4035](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-4035/): Command injection in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2026-34743](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-34743/): XZ Utils: Buffer overflow in lzma_index_append() (low 1.7)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-22916 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-22916 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 22 Aug 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-22916 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-2020-22916/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-22916/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-22916
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-22916
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-22916

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-22916/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.