CVE-2020-15688

CVE-2020-15688 is a vulnerability that affected the GNU C Library (glibc) version 2.32 and earlier. It was discovered in September 2020 by Google's Project Zero security team and reported to glibc developers. The flaw could be exploited by an attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (DoS) attack on vulnerable systems. The vulnerability was caused by a buffer overflow in the function __nss_hostname_digits_dots() in the nss_hostname_digits_dots() module of glibc. This function converts hostnames containing numeric IP address components into their binary form. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted hostname to a vulnerable system, which would trigger the buffer overflow and allow them to execute arbitrary code or cause a DoS. The vulnerability was patched in glibc version 2.32-9, which was released on October 20, 2020. However, it is important for organizations to ensure that all their systems running earlier versions of glibc are updated to the patched version to prevent exploitation of this vulnerability. As always, it is critical to keep software up-to-date and follow best practices for secure coding to reduce the risk of vulnerabilities like CVE-2020-15688.