CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-14936 — Buffer overflows were discovered in Contiki-NG 4.4 through 4.5, in the SNMP agent

Critical CVSS 9.8

Buffer overflows were discovered in Contiki-NG 4.4 through 4.5, in the SNMP agent. Functions parsing the OIDs in SNMP requests lack sufficient allocated target-buffer capacity verification when writing parsed OID values. The function snmp_oid_decode_oid() may overwrite memory areas beyond the provided target buffer, when called from snmp_message_decode() upon an SNMP request reception. Because the content of the write operations is externally provided in the SNMP requests, it enables a remote overwrite of an IoT device's memory regions beyond the allocated buffer. This overflow may allow remote overwrite of stack and statically allocated variables memory regions by sending a crafted SNMP request.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.1)
Published
2020-08-18
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system
Weaknesses
CWE-787

Affected products

  • contiki-ng / contiki-ng

Matched remediation archetype

Buffer bounds, memory safety, and memory corruption

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

Check exposure

  • Identify affected native-code versions, build flags, architectures, parsers, codecs, drivers, and input paths in all shipped artifacts.
  • Determine whether untrusted data reaches the affected routine and the process privilege, sandbox, and network exposure.
  • Confirm statically linked, vendored, firmware, and platform-provided copies, not only package-manager records.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the maintained upstream correction or replace the affected component, then rebuild every dependent artifact from clean inputs.
  • Adopt bounds-checked interfaces, validated sizes and integer conversions, clear ownership, and memory-safe components where practical.
  • Enable supported compiler and runtime hardening and add sanitized tests and fuzz regression seeds derived from non-weaponized fixtures.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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