Is CVE-2020-24338 actively exploited?

No active exploitation of CVE-2020-24338 has been confirmed so far. Continue monitoring, as exploit status can change.

Can CVE-2020-24338 be exploited remotely?

Yes. CVE-2020-24338 is exploitable remotely over the network (CVSS attack vector: Network).

What is the CVSS score of CVE-2020-24338?

CVE-2020-24338 has a CVSS score of 9.8 (CRITICAL).

HOME VULNERABILITIESCVE-2020-24338

CRITICAL

CVE-2020-24338

CWE-787Published: December 11, 2020· Updated: Jun 17, 2026

9.8

CVSS v3.1

Official Description

An issue was discovered in picoTCP through 1.7.0. The DNS domain name record decompression functionality in pico_dns_decompress_name() in pico_dns_common.c does not validate the compression pointer offset values with respect to the actual data present in a DNS response packet, causing out-of-bounds writes that lead to Denial-of-Service and Remote Code Execution.

NVD Source

Technical Analysis

CVE-2020-24338 can be exploited remotely over the network without requiring physical or adjacent access, significantly expanding the attack surface for threat actors.

The vulnerability requires no privileges and no user interaction, making it a prime target for automated exploitation campaigns and worm-like propagation.

A successful exploit results in complete confidentiality breach (data exposure), full integrity compromise (data manipulation), availability disruption (denial of service), with a CVSS base score of 9.8.

From a weakness classification perspective (CWE-787): Out-of-bounds write vulnerabilities can lead to data corruption, crashes, or arbitrary code execution.