# CVE-2020-4956: Denial of service in Spectrum Protect Operations Center

> Remote attackers can exhaust memory resources in IBM Spectrum Protect Operations Center by manipulating cache values, causing a denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.8 (`CVSS:3.0/C:N/I:N/PR:L/AV:A/UI:N/A:H/S:U/AC:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 15 Feb 2021
- **Updated:** 17 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-94wm-8j6r-283r

## What is CVE-2020-4956?

CVE-2020-4956 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in IBM Spectrum Protect Operations Center, published on 15 Feb 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

IBM Spectrum Protect Operations Center 7.1 and 8.1 is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by a RPC that allows certain cache values to be set and dumped to a file. By setting a grossly large cache value and dumping that cached value to a file multiple times, a remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause the consumption of all memory resources. IBM X-Force ID: 192156.

Weakness: CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-4956?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Ibm Spectrum Protect Operations Center.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-4956?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-4956 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-4956 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-4956 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in IBM Spectrum Protect Operations Center

- [CVE-2019-4087](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-4087/): Memory corruption in Spectrum Protect (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-4693](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-4693/): Code injection in Spectrum Protect Operations Center (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2020-4955](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-4955/): File upload in Spectrum Protect Operations Center (high 8.0)
- [CVE-2019-4088](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-4088/): Privilege escalation in Spectrum Protect (high 7.4)
- [CVE-2022-22485](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-22485/): Auth bypass in Spectrum Protect Server (medium 5.9)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-4956 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-4956 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in IBM Spectrum Protect Operations Center, published on 15 Feb 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-4956 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: IBM Spectrum Protect Operations Center. 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-2020-4956/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-4956/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-4956
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-4956
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-4956

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-4956/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.