Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2020-17440


An issue was discovered in uIP 1.0, as used in Contiki 3.0 and other products. The code that parses incoming DNS packets does not validate that domain names present in the DNS responses have '\0' termination. This results in errors when calculating the offset of the pointer that jumps over domain name bytes in DNS response packets when a name lacks this termination, and eventually leads to dereferencing the pointer at an invalid/arbitrary address, within newdata() and parse_name() in resolv.c.


Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a HIGH severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.5, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts and availability (service disruption) for affected systems. Impacting 2 products from uip_project, from contiki-os organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Reported in 2020, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.


Published

2020-12-11T23:15:13.153

Last Modified

2026-06-17T02:58:56.210

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 7.5 (HIGH)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

  • Access Vector: NETWORK
  • Access Complexity: LOW
  • Authentication: NONE
  • Confidentiality Impact: NONE
  • Integrity Impact: NONE
  • Availability Impact: PARTIAL
Exploitability Score

10.0

Impact Score

2.9

Weaknesses
  • Type: Primary
    NVD-CWE-Other

Affected Vendors & Products
Type Vendor Product Version/Range Vulnerable?
Application uip_project uip 1.0 Yes
Operating System contiki-os contiki 3.0 No

References

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For uip_project's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.