bind9 — security advisory
A malicious actor who intentionally exploits this lack of effective limitation on the number of fetches performed when processing referrals can, through the use of specially crafted referrals, cause a recursing server to issue a very large number of fetches in an attempt to process the referral. This has at least two potential effects: The performance of the recursing server can potentially be degraded by the additional work required to perform these fetches, and The attacker can exploit this behavior to use the recursing server as a reflector in a reflection attack with a high amplification factor.
- Products
- bind9
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- 1:9.16.3-1
- CVEs
- CVE-2020-8616
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 1 Nov 2026, 14:10 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
A malicious actor who intentionally exploits this lack of effective limitation on the number of fetches performed when processing referrals can, through the use of specially crafted referrals, cause a recursing server to issue a very large number of fetches in an attempt to process the referral. This has at least two potential effects: The performance of the recursing server can potentially be degraded by the additional work required to perform these fetches, and The attacker can exploit this behavior to use the recursing server as a reflector in a reflection attack with a high amplification factor.
osv:DEBIAN-CVE-2020-8616
bind9
Fixed versions: 1:9.16.3-1
bind9
Fixed versions: 1:9.16.3-1
bind9
Fixed versions: 1:9.16.3-1
Complete source record
{
"id": "cd0a4ad2ddf741f533c29206936e9a5a6ba7275940f931b9a4109b63931ade2e",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/DEBIAN-CVE-2020-8616",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "DEBIAN-CVE-2020-8616",
"summary": "A malicious actor who intentionally exploits this lack of effective limitation on the number of fetches performed when processing referrals can, through the use of specially crafted referrals, cause a recursing server to issue a very large number of fetches in an attempt to process the referral. This has at least two potential effects: The performance of the recursing server can potentially be degraded by the additional work required to perform these fetches, and The attacker can exploit this behavior to use the recursing server as a reflector in a reflection attack with a high amplification factor.",
"evidence": "osv:DEBIAN-CVE-2020-8616",
"products": [
{
"name": {
"value": "bind9",
"evidence": "/affected/0/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "1:9.16.3-1",
"evidence": "/affected/0/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
"value": "bind9",
"evidence": "/affected/1/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "1:9.16.3-1",
"evidence": "/affected/1/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
"value": "bind9",
"evidence": "/affected/2/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "1:9.16.3-1",
"evidence": "/affected/2/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
}
],
"severity": "high",
"structured": {
"id": "DEBIAN-CVE-2020-8616",
"aliases": [
"DEBIAN-CVE-2020-8616"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V3",
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"type": "ECOSYSTEM",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "1:9.16.3-1"
}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "bind9",
"purl": "pkg:deb/debian/bind9?arch=source&distro=bookworm",
"ecosystem": "Debian:12"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2020-8616.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {
"urgency": "not yet assigned"
}
},
{
"ranges": [
{
"type": "ECOSYSTEM",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "1:9.16.3-1"
}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "bind9",
"purl": "pkg:deb/debian/bind9?arch=source&distro=trixie",
"ecosystem": "Debian:13"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2020-8616.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {
"urgency": "not yet assigned"
}
},
{
"ranges": [
{
"type": "ECOSYSTEM",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "1:9.16.3-1"
}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "bind9",
"purl": "pkg:deb/debian/bind9?arch=source&distro=forky",
"ecosystem": "Debian:14"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2020-8616.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {
"urgency": "not yet assigned"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-26T12:02:51.996944641Z",
"provider": "osv",
"upstream": [
"CVE-2020-8616"
],
"references": [
"https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2020-8616"
]
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2020-8616",
"evidence": "/upstream"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 453231,
"published_at": "2020-05-19T14:15:11.877+00:00"
}