CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-13645 — Gnome Balsa security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 6.5

In GNOME glib-networking through 2.64.2, the implementation of GTlsClientConnection skips hostname verification of the server's TLS certificate if the application fails to specify the expected server identity. This is in contrast to its intended documented behavior, to fail the certificate verification. Applications that fail to provide the server identity, including Balsa before 2.5.11 and 2.6.x before 2.6.1, accept a TLS certificate if the certificate is valid for any host.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
6.5 (3.1)
Published
2020-05-28
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-295

Affected products

  • gnome / balsa
  • gnome / balsa / 2.6.0
  • gnome / glib-networking
  • canonical / ubuntu_linux / 16.04
  • canonical / ubuntu_linux / 18.04
  • canonical / ubuntu_linux / 19.10

Showing 6 representative product identities from 12 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Cryptography, certificate, signature, and channel validation

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Inventory affected algorithms, key uses, trust stores, certificate validation settings, random sources, and plaintext channels across clients and services.
  • Determine which secrets, identities, signatures, or data protections depend on the affected primitive or validation path.
  • Check debug, compatibility, fallback, and hostname or audience override settings in build and runtime configuration.

Remediate safely

  • Use a maintained platform cryptographic API with approved algorithms, modes, parameters, randomness, and full peer identity validation.
  • Remove insecure fallback and validation bypasses; separate keys by purpose and load them from managed secret storage.
  • Plan rotation or reissuance for affected keys, certificates, tokens, hashes, or ciphertext and document compatibility sequencing.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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