CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-17438 — An issue was discovered in uIP 1.0, as used in Contiki 3.0 and other products

Critical CVSS 9.8

An issue was discovered in uIP 1.0, as used in Contiki 3.0 and other products. The code that reassembles fragmented packets fails to properly validate the total length of an incoming packet specified in its IP header, as well as the fragmentation offset value specified in the IP header. By crafting a packet with specific values of the IP header length and the fragmentation offset, attackers can write into the .bss section of the program (past the statically allocated buffer that is used for storing the fragmented data) and cause a denial of service in uip_reass() in uip.c, or possibly execute arbitrary code on some target architectures.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.1)
Published
2020-12-11
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-787

Affected products

  • uip_project / uip / 1.0

Matched remediation archetype

Buffer bounds, memory safety, and memory corruption

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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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