EDIPARTYNAME NULL pointer dereference (CVE-2020-1971)
Published Sources: BSI, CVE.org, OSV
What is affected, what to do
The X.509 GeneralName type is a generic type for representing different types of names. One of those name types is known as EDIPartyName.
Update node.js to version 10.23.1, openssl to version 1.0.2x, jd_edwards_enterpriseone_tools to version 9.2.5.3.
- Affected
- OpenSSL
eq Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1i (Affected 1.1.1-1.1.1h)..Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1i (Affected 1.1.1-1.1.1h) - OpenSSL
eq Fixed in OpenSSL 1.0.2x (Affected 1.0.2-1.0.2w)..Fixed in OpenSSL 1.0.2x (Affected 1.0.2-1.0.2w)
- OpenSSL
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Metrics
5.9
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: NVD, CVSS v3
5.9
CVSS v3
Severity Medium on the scale from 0 to 10.
Source: BSI, CVE.org, OSV
7.0 %
EPSS score
Moderate — model estimates 1-10% exploitation likelihood.
Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 94.1
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Medium
Priority (0–325)
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 100.40 Methodology
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- no public PoC known
XIEM Effective CVSS
XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.
Read in glossary- 5.9 Methodology
CVSS v3
CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.
Read in glossary- 5.9
EPSS score
The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.
Read in glossary- 7.0 %
- Moderate — model estimates 1-10% exploitation likelihood.
EPSS percentile
The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.
Read in glossary- 94.1
- Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- —
- Published
- CISA assessment (SSVC)
- Exploitation: none known · not automatable · Technical impact: partial
- Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 29 May 2026
CWE
CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.
Read in glossary- CWE-476
Detection rules
No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- Handle the vulnerability in regular vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2.
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
The X.509 GeneralName type is a generic type for representing different types of names. One of those name types is known as EDIPartyName. OpenSSL provides a function GENERAL_NAME_cmp which compares different instances of a GENERAL_NAME to see if they are equal or not. This function behaves incorrectly when both GENERAL_NAMEs contain an EDIPARTYNAME. A NULL pointer dereference and a crash may occur leading to a possible denial of service attack. OpenSSL itself uses the GENERAL_NAME_cmp function for two purposes: 1) Comparing CRL distribution point names between an available CRL and a CRL distribution point embedded in an X509 certificate 2) When verifying that a timestamp response token signer matches the timestamp authority name (exposed via the API functions TS_RESP_verify_response and TS_RESP_verify_token) If an attacker can control both items being compared then that attacker could trigger a crash. For example if the attacker can trick a client or server into checking a malicious certificate against a malicious CRL then this may occur. Note that some applications automatically download CRLs based on a URL embedded in a certificate. This checking happens prior to the signatures on the certificate and CRL being verified. OpenSSL's s_server, s_client and verify tools have support for the "-crl_download" option which implements automatic CRL downloading and this attack has been demonstrated to work against those tools. Note that an unrelated bug means that affected versions of OpenSSL cannot parse or construct correct encodings of EDIPARTYNAME. However it is possible to construct a malformed EDIPARTYNAME that OpenSSL's parser will accept and hence trigger this attack. All OpenSSL 1.1.1 and 1.0.2 versions are affected by this issue. Other OpenSSL releases are out of support and have not been checked. Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1i (Affected 1.1.1-1.1.1h). Fixed in OpenSSL 1.0.2x (Affected 1.0.2-1.0.2w).
Source: BSI CSAF, BSI WID Portal, NVD (NIST), OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities), cvelistv5
Affected products
The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.
| Affected versions | Fixed in | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenSSL | OpenSSL |
|
|
| netapp | active_iq_unified_manager |
|
|
| netapp | clustered_data_ontap_antivirus_connector |
|
|
| netapp | data_ontap |
|
|
| netapp | e-series_santricity_os_controller |
|
|
| netapp | hci_compute_node |
|
|
| netapp | hci_management_node |
|
|
| netapp | hci_storage_node |
|
|
| netapp | manageability_software_development_kit |
|
|
| netapp | oncommand_insight |
|
|
| netapp | oncommand_workflow_automation |
|
|
| netapp | plug-in_for_symantec_netbackup |
|
|
| netapp | santricity_smi-s_provider |
|
|
| netapp | snapcenter |
|
|
| netapp | solidfire |
|
|
| nodejs | node.js |
|
|
| openssl | openssl |
|
|
| oracle | api_gateway |
|
|
| oracle | business_intelligence |
|
|
| oracle | communications_cloud_native_core_network_function_cloud_native_environment |
|
|
| oracle | communications_diameter_intelligence_hub |
|
|
| oracle | communications_session_border_controller |
|
|
| oracle | communications_session_router |
|
|
| oracle | communications_subscriber-aware_load_balancer |
|
|
| oracle | communications_unified_session_manager |
|
|
| oracle | enterprise_communications_broker |
|
|
| oracle | enterprise_manager_base_platform |
|
|
Vendors and products
- Android
- Debian Debian Linux
- Dell Dell ECS
- Fedora Project Infrastructure Fedora
- NetApp Active IQ Unified Manager
- NetApp Aff A250 Firmware
- NetApp Clustered Data Ontap Antivirus Connector
- NetApp NetApp Data ONTAP
- NetApp E-Series SANtricity OS Controller Software 11.x
- NetApp Hci Compute Node
- NetApp Hci Management Node
- NetApp Hci Storage Node
Affected operating systems
| Linux | debian | debian_linux | 10.0 |
| Linux | debian | debian_linux | 9.0 |
| Other | netapp | aff_a250_firmware | — |
| Other | netapp | ef600a_firmware | — |
| Other | fedoraproject | fedora | 32 |
| Other | fedoraproject | fedora | 33 |
Weakness classes (CWE)
CWE-476NULL Pointer Dereference
Base
The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.
Entry at MITRE CWE-476
References & sources
- source.android.comsecurity/bulletin/2021-06-01advisory
- openssl.orgnews/secadv/20201208.txtVendor advisory
- git.openssl.orggitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=f960d81215ebf3f65e03d4d5d8…
- git.openssl.orggitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=2154ab83e14ede338d2ede9bbe…
- debian.orgDSA-4807Vendor advisory, Third-party advisory
- security.freebsd.orgFreeBSD-SA-20:33Vendor advisory, Third-party advisory
- lists.debian.org[debian-lts-announce] 20201214 [SECURITY] [DLA 2493-1] openssl1.0 security updateMailing list, Mailing list, Third-party advisory
- lists.debian.org[debian-lts-announce] 20201214 [SECURITY] [DLA 2492-1] openssl security updateMailing list, Mailing list, Third-party advisory
- lists.fedoraproject.orgFEDORA-2020-ef1870065aVendor advisory
- lists.apache.org[pulsar-commits] 20201216 [GitHub] [pulsar] phijohns-tibco opened a new issue #8978: OpenSSL needs to be updated to 1.1.1i current version is unsupported.Mailing list
- lists.fedoraproject.orgFEDORA-2020-a31b01e945Vendor advisory
- security.gentoo.orgGLSA-202012-13Vendor advisory, Third-party advisory
- oracle.comsecurity-alerts/cpujan2021.htmlThird-party advisory
- tenable.comsecurity/tns-2020-11Third-party advisory
- security.netapp.comadvisory/ntap-20201218-0005Third-party advisory
- kb.pulsesecure.netarticles/Pulse_Security_Advisories/SA44676Third-party advisory
- lists.apache.org[tomcat-dev] 20210207 [Bug 65126] New: A security vulnerability cve-2020-1971 in Tomcat dependency Library in version 9.0.40.Mailing list
- oracle.comsecurity-alerts/cpuApr2021.htmlPatch, Third-party advisory
- tenable.comsecurity/tns-2021-10Third-party advisory
- tenable.comsecurity/tns-2021-09Third-party advisory
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<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2020-1971"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2020-1971.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2020-1971 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>