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NTAP-20210122-0003 — December 2020 GNU Binutils Vulnerabilities in NetApp Products

Published 2021-01-22 · Updated 2025-02-21 · Status: Final · Exploitation: Public · Severity: MEDIUM 5.5 · ONTAP affected: Yes

Official advisory: NTAP-20210122-0003 on security.netapp.com ↗. Affected versions, fixed releases, and workarounds live there — this page is a summary.

Product family: Cloud Backup / AltaVault / SteelStore · SolidFire / NetApp HCI · ONTAP | ONTAP-relevant | highest CVSS: 5.5

CVEs in this advisory

CVE-2020-16593 — MEDIUM · CVSS 5.5 · site index
CVE-2020-16599 — MEDIUM · CVSS 5.5 · site index

What the CVE records say

CVE-2020-16593 — A Null Pointer Dereference vulnerability exists in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.35, in scan_unit_for_symbols, as demonstrated in addr2line, that can cause a denial of service via a crafted file.

CVE-2020-16599 — A Null Pointer Dereference vulnerability exists in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.35, in _bfd_elf_get_symbol_version_string, as demonstrated in nm-new, that can cause a denial of service via a crafted file.

Impact

Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could lead to Denial of Service (DoS).

Affected products

NetApp Cloud Backup (formerly AltaVault)
NetApp Cloud Backup OST Plug-in (formerly AltaVault OST Plug-in)
NetApp SolidFire & HCI Management Node
ONTAP Select Deploy administration utility

Official fixes

NetApp SolidFire & HCI Management Node — vendor fix ↗
ONTAP Select Deploy administration utility — vendor fix ↗

What to do

Check the affected products listed above against the official advisory's affected-versions table — that is where the exact ONTAP 9 release, ONTAP tool, or management product versions are named.
If affected and a fixed release exists, plan the upgrade — see the ONTAP upgrade runbook.
If exploitation is listed as "active", treat remediation as urgent and review exposure (management LIFs, ONTAP S3, SnapMirror endpoints).
Harden in parallel: security hardening baseline and ransomware protection on ONTAP.