Vulnerability in GNU Bison (CVE-2020-24240)

Summary

Vulnerability in GNU Bison (CVE-2020-24240). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

GNU Bison before 3.7.1 has a use-after-free in _obstack_free in lib/obstack.c (called from gram_lex) when a '\0' byte is encountered. NOTE: there is a risk only if Bison is used with untrusted input, and the observed bug happens to cause unsafe behavior with a specific compiler/architecture. The bug report was intended to show that a crash may occur in Bison itself, not that a crash may occur in code that is generated by Bison.

Source: OSV.dev (Open Source Vulnerabilities) NVD OSV

Auto-generated summary

Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.

A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2020-24240 has been found in GNU Bison.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: apply the vendor's official patched release.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "GNU Bison CVE-2020-24240" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2020-24240 (GNU Bison)
Attack vector: local / unauthenticated
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.

❓ What is the problem

A vulnerability (unclassified) exists in GNU Bison.

📍 Affected scope

Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of GNU Bison.

🔥 Severity

Severity: ?. Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.

🔧 How to fix

Update to the patched release per vendor advisory.

🛡️ Workaround

Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.

🔍 Detection

Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Audit SBOM/dependencies to find affected services.

Response actions

Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order

1
Identify exposure identify
```
Audit SBOM/dependencies for affected components.
```
資産台帳・SBOM・依存マニフェストで GNU Bison を使っているサービスとバージョンを洗い出す。
2
Post-deployment verification verify
```
Confirm patched version is live in production
```
パッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

Alpine Linux ALPINE-CVE-2020-24240 bison Fixed in: 3.7.2-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2020-24240 bison Fixed in: 2:3.7.2+dfsg-1

References

advisory github.com
advisory lists.gnu.org
patch github.com