CVE-2020-11090: Indy node Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CRITICAL
Advisory Identifier: GHSA-3gw4-m5w7-v89c
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CVSS 7.5
CWE-400
Published
Advisory Summary

CVE-2020-11090 is a CRITICAL (CVSS 7.5) remote code execution vulnerability (CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) affecting Indy node libraries in the PyPI ecosystem. The issue involves uncontrolled resource consumption in indy node. Remediation is available by upgrading affected packages to version 1.12.3.

CVE-2020-11090 at a Glance

CVE Identifier CVE-2020-11090
GHSA Identifier GHSA-3gw4-m5w7-v89c
Severity CRITICAL
CVSS v3.1 Base Score 7.5
CWE Classification CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Affected Product Indy node
Package Ecosystem PyPI
Published Date
Last Updated

Security Impact

CVSS: 7.5

The security impact metrics below are parsed directly from the CVSS v3.1 vector string (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

Attack Vector Network (AV:N)
Attack Complexity Low (AC:L)
Privileges Required None (PR:N)
User Interaction None (UI:N)
Scope Unchanged (S:U)
Confidentiality None (C:N)
Integrity None (I:N)
Availability High (A:H)

How to Fix CVE-2020-11090

To remediate this vulnerability, upgrade all affected Indy node dependencies to a patched release. Both direct and transitive dependencies should be checked, as frameworks or security libraries may pull in vulnerable versions transitively.

indy-node fixed: 1.12.3 
pip install indy-node>=1.12.3
Verify Direct and Transitive Dependencies

Run the following command in your project directory to verify that all resolved dependencies use the patched release: 

pip show indy-node

How to Check if You Are Affected

To determine whether your Python environment is affected by CVE-2020-11090, inspect your installed packages using pip:

pip show indy-node

Analyze the terminal output to locate any version of Indy node in your dependency tree. If any resolved version matches the vulnerable ranges listed in the table below (for example, versions earlier than 1.12.3), your application is affected.

Note: The pip show indy-node command checks currently installed packages in your active Python environment.

Technical Details

Vulnerability Mechanism & Technical Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption, where the product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource. In Indy node, software state validation or input boundaries are circumvented during processing. Review the official source advisory statement below for specific affected components, classes, and reproduction details.

Source Advisory Statement

# Summary Indy Node has a bug in TAA handling code. The current primary can be crashed with a malformed transaction from a client, which leads to a view change. Repeated rapid view changes have the potential of bringing down the network. # Discovery On May 18, Evernym's monitoring of Sovrin StagingNet showed a report of StagingNet losing sufficient consensus to validate write transactions. The problem resolved itself within a few minutes. On May 20th we saw the alert multiple times, and we began analyzing the logs of our steward node. On May 21st we continued to see the alerts with increasing frequency. It appears that someone is unknowingly sending a malformed transaction, and retrying when the transaction fails. The cause of the errors appear to be the TAA acceptance. # Proposed actions * Reproduce problem in integration tests and create a fix * Do a hotfix release branching from last stable (current master have some things merged that are too risky) * Upgrade BuilderNet, StagingNet and MainNet as soon as possible * Improve testing strategy on Indy Node to reduce probability of such bugs # Notes * The journalctl logs also show an out-of-memory problem on the Australia node. We need to evaluate if this should be raised as a separate issue.

CVE-2020-11090 Affected Indy node Versions

1 component(s)
Fixed Versions:
1.12.3
Product / Package Ecosystem Affected Versions Fixed Version
indy-node
pypi/indy-node
PyPI
≥ 1.12.2
< 1.12.3
All 1 versions
1.12.2
1.12.3

References

GitHub Advisory / Wiki ADVISORY
https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-node/security/advisories/GHSA-3gw4-m5w7-v89c
NVD — CVE-2020-11090 NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-11090
Indy node Source Repository REPOSITORY
https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-node
Indy node Source Repository REPOSITORY
https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-node/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#1123
Indy node Source Repository REPOSITORY
https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/indy-node/PYSEC-2020-47.yaml
pypi.org/project/indy-node/1... WEB
https://pypi.org/project/indy-node/1.12.3

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2020-11090?
CVE-2020-11090 is a security vulnerability in Indy node involving Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in Indy Node under CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption.
Which Indy node versions are affected?
Affected versions include releases prior to 1.12.3 across affected packages: indy-node.
What version fixes CVE-2020-11090?
Upgrading to 1.12.3 (or the latest patched release for your respective branch) resolves the vulnerability.
Is indy-node affected?
Yes, indy-node is affected in releases prior to 1.12.3. Upgrade your dependency to 1.12.3 or later.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2020-11090?
CVE-2020-11090 has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (CRITICAL) with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
What CWE is associated with CVE-2020-11090?
CVE-2020-11090 is classified under CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.).
How can I check PyPI dependencies for CVE-2020-11090?
Run the dependency tree command: 'pip show indy-node'. This command lists direct and transitive dependencies in your build configuration so you can verify if a vulnerable version is resolved.
Machine-readable OSV JSON OSV v1.5 Schema
Normalized schema output
View Raw JSON 
{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-3gw4-m5w7-v89c",
  "modified" : "2024-11-18T16:26:06Z",
  "published" : "2020-06-11T00:04:15Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2020-11090" ],
  "summary" : "Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in Indy Node",
  "details" : "# Summary\nIndy Node has a bug in TAA handling code. The current primary can be crashed with a malformed transaction from a client, which leads to a view change. Repeated rapid view changes have the potential of bringing down the network.\n\n# Discovery\nOn May 18, Evernym's monitoring of Sovrin StagingNet showed a report of StagingNet losing sufficient consensus to validate write transactions. The problem resolved itself within a few minutes. On May 20th we saw the alert multiple times, and we began analyzing the logs of our steward node. On May 21st we continued to see the alerts with increasing frequency.\n\nIt appears that someone is unknowingly sending a malformed transaction, and retrying when the transaction fails. The cause of the errors appear to be the TAA acceptance.\n\n# Proposed actions\n* Reproduce problem in integration tests and create a fix\n* Do a hotfix release branching from last stable (current master have some things merged that are too risky)\n* Upgrade BuilderNet, StagingNet and MainNet as soon as possible\n* Improve testing strategy on Indy Node to reduce probability of such bugs\n\n# Notes\n* The journalctl logs also show an out-of-memory problem on the Australia node. We need to evaluate if this should be raised as a separate issue.",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"
  }, {
    "type" : "CVSS_V4",
    "score" : "CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "PyPI",
      "name" : "indy-node"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "1.12.2"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "1.12.3"
      } ]
    } ],
    "versions" : [ "1.12.2" ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-node/security/advisories/GHSA-3gw4-m5w7-v89c"
  }, {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-11090"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-node"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-node/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#1123"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/indy-node/PYSEC-2020-47.yaml"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://pypi.org/project/indy-node/1.12.3"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-400" ],
    "severity" : "CRITICAL",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2020-06-11T00:02:06Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : null
  }
}