CVE-2020-13529 — An exploitable denial-of-service vulnerability exists in Systemd 245

An exploitable denial-of-service vulnerability exists in Systemd 245. A specially crafted DHCP FORCERENEW packet can cause a server running the DHCP client to be vulnerable to a DHCP ACK spoofing attack. An attacker can forge a pair of FORCERENEW and DCHP ACK packets to reconfigu

01What is this vulnerability?

An exploitable denial-of-service vulnerability exists in Systemd 245. A specially crafted DHCP FORCERENEW packet can cause a server running the DHCP client to be vulnerable to a DHCP ACK spoofing attack. An attacker can forge a pair of FORCERENEW and DCHP ACK packets to reconfigure the server.

02Affected products

No structured affected-product list available — see references below for vendor advisories.

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2021-05-10T16:15:07.373
• Last modified: 2026-10-14T10:17:27.337

09References

• www.openwall.com — http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/08/04/2
• www.openwall.com — http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/08/17/3
• www.openwall.com — http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/09/07/3
• lists.fedoraproject.org — https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedorapro…
• security.gentoo.org — https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202107-48
• security.netapp.com — https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210625-0005/
• talosintelligence.com — https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2020-1142
• www.openwall.com — http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/08/04/2
• www.openwall.com — http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/08/17/3
• www.openwall.com — http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/09/07/3