# CVE-2020-4869: Denial of service in MQ Appliance

> A remote attacker can cause a denial of service on IBM MQ Appliance by sending a specially crafted SNMP query that triggers a buffer overflow.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.0/AC:H/I:N/AV:N/C:N/UI:N/PR:L/S:U/A:H/RC:C/E:U/RL:O`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 11 Jan 2021
- **Updated:** 16 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-r6xm-wq7q-jr6c

## What is CVE-2020-4869?

CVE-2020-4869 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in IBM MQ Appliance, published on 11 Jan 2021. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

IBM MQ Appliance 9.2 CD and 9.2 LTS is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by a buffer overflow. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted SNMP query to cause the appliance to reload. IBM X-Force ID: 190831.

Weakness: CWE-120 (Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-4869?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Ibm Mq Appliance.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-4869?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-4869 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-4869 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-4869 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in IBM MQ Appliance

- [CVE-2025-0975](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-0975/): IBM MQ code execution (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2017-1318](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-1318/): Command injection in MQ Appliance (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2019-4620](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-4620/): Security feature bypass in MQ Appliance (high 8.4)
- [CVE-2021-38967](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-38967/): Code injection in MQ Appliance (high 8.2)
- [CVE-2024-25048](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-25048/): IBM MQ code execution (high 7.5)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-4869 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-4869 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in IBM MQ Appliance, published on 11 Jan 2021. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-4869 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: IBM MQ Appliance. 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-2020-4869/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-4869/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-4869
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-4869
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-4869

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-4869/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.