# CVE-2020-6019: Denial of service in Game Networking Sockets

> An attacker can cause a crash in Valve's Game Networking Sockets library by sending malformed inlined statistics messages.

- **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:** No
- **Published:** 13 Nov 2020
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-fv4q-rrm4-jp4w

## What is CVE-2020-6019?

CVE-2020-6019 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Game Networking Sockets, published on 13 Nov 2020. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Valve's Game Networking Sockets prior to version v1.2.0 improperly handles inlined statistics messages in function CConnectionTransportUDPBase::Received_Data(), leading to an exception thrown from libprotobuf and resulting in a crash.

Weakness: CWE-248 (Uncaught Exception)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-6019?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Valvesoftware Game Networking Sockets.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-6019?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-6019 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-6019 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-6019 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Game Networking Sockets

- [CVE-2020-6017](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-6017/): Memory corruption in Game Networking Sockets (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-6018](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-6018/): Memory corruption in Game Networking Sockets (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-6016](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-6016/): Memory corruption in Game Networking Sockets (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-6019 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-6019 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Game Networking Sockets, published on 13 Nov 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-2020-6019 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Game Networking Sockets. 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-2020-6019/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-6019/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-6019
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-6019
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-6019

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-6019/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.