# CVE-2020-8991: Denial of service in n/a

> A memory leak in LVM2's lvmetad daemon could potentially lead to resource exhaustion, though its security impact is disputed.

- **Severity:** Low 2.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 14 Feb 2020
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2020-8991, GHSA-qhfv-hfvw-jqhq

## What is CVE-2020-8991?

CVE-2020-8991 is a low-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 14 Feb 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

vg_lookup in daemons/lvmetad/lvmetad-core.c in LVM2 2.02 mismanages memory, leading to an lvmetad memory leak, as demonstrated by running pvs. NOTE: RedHat disputes CVE-2020-8991 as not being a vulnerability since there’s no apparent route to either privilege escalation or to denial of service through the bug

Weakness: CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-8991?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Redhat Lvm2.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-8991?

No fix published yet.

## Is CVE-2020-8991 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-8991 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-8991 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-8991 is a low-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 14 Feb 2020. 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-2020-8991 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. 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-2020-8991/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-8991/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-8991
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-8991
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-8991

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-8991/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.