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CVE-2020-4994

7.5 HIGH
Denial of Service

📋 TL;DR

This vulnerability in IBM DataPower Gateway allows remote attackers to cause a temporary denial of service by sending specially crafted invalid HTTP requests. It affects IBM DataPower Gateway versions 10.0.1.0-10.0.1.4 and 2018.4.1.0-2018.4.1.17. Organizations using these vulnerable versions are at risk of service disruption.

💻 Affected Systems

Products:
  • IBM DataPower Gateway
Versions: 10.0.1.0 through 10.0.1.4 and 2018.4.1.0 through 2018.4.1.17
Operating Systems: IBM DataPower appliance OS
Default Config Vulnerable: ⚠️ Yes
Notes: All configurations of affected versions are vulnerable when exposed to network traffic

📦 What is this software?

Datapower Gateway by Ibm

View all CVEs affecting Datapower Gateway →

Datapower Gateway by Ibm

View all CVEs affecting Datapower Gateway →

⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact

🔴

Worst Case

Complete service outage of the DataPower Gateway, disrupting all traffic routing and API management functions for an extended period

🟠

Likely Case

Temporary service degradation or brief outages affecting application availability

🟢

If Mitigated

Minimal impact with proper network controls and monitoring in place

🌐 Internet-Facing: HIGH - Remote attackers can exploit this without authentication by sending HTTP requests
🏢 Internal Only: MEDIUM - Internal attackers could still exploit, but requires network access

🎯 Exploit Status

Public PoC: ✅ No
Weaponized: UNKNOWN
Unauthenticated Exploit: ⚠️ Yes
Complexity: LOW

Exploitation requires sending malformed HTTP requests, which is relatively simple

🛠️ Fix & Mitigation

✅ Official Fix

Patch Version: 10.0.1.5 and 2018.4.1.18 or later

Vendor Advisory: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6586526

Restart Required: Yes

Instructions:

1. Download the latest firmware from IBM Fix Central. 2. Backup current configuration. 3. Apply the firmware update. 4. Restart the DataPower Gateway. 5. Verify the update was successful.

🔧 Temporary Workarounds

Network Access Control

all

Restrict network access to DataPower Gateway to only trusted sources

Rate Limiting

all

Implement rate limiting on HTTP requests to prevent DoS attacks

🧯 If You Can't Patch

  • Implement strict network segmentation and firewall rules to limit access
  • Deploy WAF or load balancer with DoS protection in front of DataPower Gateway

🔍 How to Verify

Check if Vulnerable:

Check the firmware version via DataPower WebGUI or CLI: show version

Check Version:

show version

Verify Fix Applied:

Verify version is 10.0.1.5+ or 2018.4.1.18+ and test with malformed HTTP requests

📡 Detection & Monitoring

Log Indicators:

  • Unusual HTTP error patterns
  • Service restart logs
  • High rate of malformed requests

Network Indicators:

  • Spike in HTTP 400/500 errors
  • Unusual HTTP request patterns
  • Traffic from suspicious sources

SIEM Query:

source="datapower" AND (http_status>=400 OR message="service restart")

📊 Metadata

CVE ID: CVE-2020-4994
CVSS v3 Score: 7.5 (HIGH)
CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Published: May 17, 2022
Last Updated: November 21, 2024

🔗 References

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