CVE-2020-27790 Denial of service in upx

Medium 5.5 Published 18 Aug 2022 Updated 4 Aug 2024

An attacker can cause a denial of service in UPX by providing a crafted input file that triggers a floating point exception.

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-2020-27790?

CVE-2020-27790 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in upx, published on 18 Aug 2022. 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 floating point exception issue was discovered in UPX in PackLinuxElf64::invert_pt_dynamic() function of p_lx_elf.cpp file. An attacker with a crafted input file could trigger this issue that could cause a crash leading to a denial of service. The highest impact is to Availability.

Weakness: CWE-369

Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-27790?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Upx Upx.

How do I fix CVE-2020-27790?

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-2020-27790 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-27790 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2020-27790, GHSA-vhpq-rmjq-cgrp, UBUNTU-CVE-2020-27790.