# CVE-2020-25829: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can cause denial of service in PowerDNS Recursor by forcing DNSSEC validation failures via crafted DNS ANY queries.

- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 16 Oct 2020
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2020-25829, GHSA-w93h-8xj5-rq44, MGASA-2020-0393, UBUNTU-CVE-2020-25829

## What is CVE-2020-25829?

CVE-2020-25829 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Opensuse Backports Sle, published on 16 Oct 2020. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An issue has been found in PowerDNS Recursor before 4.1.18, 4.2.x before 4.2.5, and 4.3.x before 4.3.5. A remote attacker can cause the cached records for a given name to be updated to the Bogus DNSSEC validation state, instead of their actual DNSSEC Secure state, via a DNS ANY query. This results in a denial of service for installation that always validate (dnssec=validate), and for clients requesting validation when on-demand validation is enabled (dnssec=process).

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-25829?

It affects 3 products.


Products: Opensuse Backports Sle, Opensuse Leap, Powerdns Recursor.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-25829?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2020-25829 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-25829 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Opensuse Backports Sle

- [CVE-2020-12641](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-12641/): Roundcube Webmail Remote Code Execution (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2020-12640](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-12640/): Path traversal in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-8233](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-8233/): Command injection in EdgeSwitch firmware v1.9.0 and prior (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2020-8026](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-8026/): inn: non-root owned files (high 8.4)
- [CVE-2020-15229](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-15229/): Path traversal and files overwrite with unsquashfs (high 8.2)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-25829 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-25829 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Opensuse Backports Sle, published on 16 Oct 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-2020-25829 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Opensuse Backports Sle. 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-2020-25829/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-25829/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-25829
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-25829
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-25829

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-25829/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.