Vulnerability Report

CVE-2020-10995

Title: PowerDNS Recursor Amplification Attack

DoS

Proof Of Concept

No public PoC currently indexed for CVE-2020-10995.

CWE Category CWE-400
Published Date May 19, 2020
Modified Date Jun 17, 2026
Exploit Status Not Found
Score 7.5 CVSS v3.1
Exploit Probability (EPSS)
4.37%

Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2020-10995: PowerDNS Recursor from 4.1.0 up to and including 4.3.0 does not sufficiently defend against amplification attacks. An issue in the DNS protocol has been found that allow malicious parties to use recursive DNS services to attack third party authoritative name servers. The attack uses a crafted reply by an authoritative name server to amplify the resulting traffic between the recursive and other authoritative name servers. Both types of service can suffer degraded performance as an effect. This is triggered by random subdomains in the NSDNAME in NS records. PowerDNS Recursor 4.1.16, 4.2.2 and 4.3.1 contain a mitigation to limit the impact of this DNS protocol issue.

Impacted Vendors

O
opensuse 1
P
powerdns 1

Reference Links

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-05/msg00052.html http://www.nxnsattack.com https://doc.powerdns.com/recursor/security-advisories/powerdns-advisory-2020-01.html https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/NMP72NJGKBWR5WEBXAWX5KSLQUDFTG6S/ https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/PS4ZN5XGENYNFKX7QIIOUCQQHXE37GJF/ https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4691 http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-05/msg00052.html http://www.nxnsattack.com https://doc.powerdns.com/recursor/security-advisories/powerdns-advisory-2020-01.html https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/NMP72NJGKBWR5WEBXAWX5KSLQUDFTG6S/ https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/PS4ZN5XGENYNFKX7QIIOUCQQHXE37GJF/ https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4691
CVSS v3.1
Source Entity [email protected]
Severity HIGH
7.5
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
N/A
Interaction
NONE
Confidentiality
N/A
Integrity
N/A
Availability
N/A
Scope
UNCHANGED
RAW VECTOR CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS v2.0
Source Entity [email protected]
Severity MEDIUM
5.0
Access Vector
N/A
Authentication
N/A
RAW VECTOR AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Associated Attack Patterns (CAPEC)

Total: Patterns

CVE-2020-10995 Exploits & PoCs (Proof Of Concept)

No public PoCs found in our database for this CVE.

MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

MODIFIED

Vulnerability data or affected products updated.

PUBLISHED

Vulnerability first announced in NVD.

Attack Vector Matrix

Access Vector NETWORK
Complexity LOW
Privileges N/A
Interaction NONE
CVSS Vector String CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected Stack

No specific products linked.