Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2020-27171

medium Nessus Plugin ID 223500

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

- An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel before 5.11.8. kernel/bpf/verifier.c has an off-by-one error (with a resultant integer underflow) affecting out-of-bounds speculation on pointer arithmetic, leading to side-channel attacks that defeat Spectre mitigations and obtain sensitive information from kernel memory, aka CID-10d2bb2e6b1d. (CVE-2020-27171)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

See Also

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2020-27171

https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2020-27171

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 223500

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2020_27171.nasl

Version: 1.3

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 3/4/2025

Updated: 9/2/2025

Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.2

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Low

Base Score: 3.6

Temporal Score: 2.7

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:P

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2020-27171

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6

Temporal Score: 5.2

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:centos:centos:8, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oracle-5.3, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-hwe-edge, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:22.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oracle-5.0, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:24.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-kvm, cpe:/o:centos:centos:7, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-riscv, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-rt, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-raspi-realtime, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gcp-5.3, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gcp, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-aws-5.3, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-edge, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oem, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-aws-5.0, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-5.3, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gcp-edge, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-aws, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-lts-xenial, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-intel-iot-realtime, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-raspi2, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:14.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-realtime, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gke-4.15, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt

Required KB Items: Host/OS/identifier, Host/cpu, Host/local_checks_enabled, global_settings/vendor_unpatched

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 3/20/2021

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2020-27171