CVE-2020-25643 Memory corruption in kernel

What is CVE-2020-25643?

CVE-2020-25643 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 6 Oct 2020. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

Official description

A flaw was found in the HDLC_PPP module of the Linux kernel in versions before 5.9-rc7. Memory corruption and a read overflow is caused by improper input validation in the ppp_cp_parse_cr function which can cause the system to crash or cause a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.

Weakness: CWE-20

Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-25643?

It affects 6 products.

Products include Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel, Netapp H410c Firmware, Opensuse Leap, Redhat Enterprise Linux, Starwindsoftware Starwind Virtual San.

How do I fix CVE-2020-25643?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.

Is CVE-2020-25643 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-25643 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux

• CVE-2015-3306 ProFTPD Improper Access Control Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2025-49113 RoundCube Webmail Deserialization of Untrusted Data Exploited Critical 9.9
• CVE-2026-24061 GNU InetUtils Argument Injection Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2025-39682 Linux Kernel Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2024-9680 Mozilla Firefox Use-After-Free Exploited Critical 9.8

All Debian Debian Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2020-25643, GHSA-vhhq-pmj4-x7gm, UBUNTU-CVE-2020-25643.