CVE-2020-22217

Exp

Buffer overflow vulnerability in c-ares before 1_16_1 thru 1_17_0 via function ares_parse_soa_reply in ares_parse_soa_reply.c.

Published: 2023-08-22 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2020-22217 is rated Exploit Available (57.8/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.84%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2020-22217

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-22217

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.11% 0.84% +0.72%
2 2025-12-30 0.25% 0.11% -0.13%
3 2025-11-21 — 0.25% —

Full EPSS history (11 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-22217

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.9 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 2.2 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2020-22217

OS Trackers for CVE-2020-22217

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2020-22217 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (c-ares), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2020-22217
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-22217
suse high CVE-2020-22217 severity important: SUSE including 8 source package names (c-ares, c-ares-1.13.0-9.el8_9.1, …), 77 product×package rows across 34 product lines (Image SLES12-SP5-SAP-Azure-LI-BYOS-Production, Image SLES12-SP5-SAP-Azure-VLI-BYOS-Production, … (34 product lines)): Known Not Affected 67, Fixed 10. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-22217/
ubuntu medium CVE-2020-22217 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (c-ares), 12 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 7, needs-triage 3, ignored 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2020-22217

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-22217

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
c-ares c-ares 1.16.1 cpe:2.3:a:c-ares:c-ares:1.16.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
c-ares c-ares 1.17.0 cpe:2.3:a:c-ares:c-ares:1.17.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-22217

URL Tags
https://github.com/c-ares/c-ares/issues/333 Exploit Issue Tracking Patch
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/09/msg00014.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence