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Fencer Intel
medium 4.4

CVE-2020-5226 json

Cross-site scripting in SimpleSAMLphp

published 6y ago modified last mo. also GHSA-mj9p-v2r8-wf8w , EUVD-2020-0271

cvss
4.4
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 45%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Cross-site scripting in SimpleSAMLphp before version 1.18.4. The www/erroreport.php script allows error reports to be submitted and sent to the system administrator. Starting with SimpleSAMLphp 1.18.0, a new SimpleSAML\Utils\EMail class was introduced to handle sending emails, implemented as a wrapper of an external dependency. This new wrapper allows us to use Twig templates in order to create the email sent with an error report. Since Twig provides automatic escaping of variables, manual escaping of the free-text field in www/errorreport.php was removed to avoid double escaping. However, for those not using the new user interface yet, an email template is hardcoded into the class itself in plain PHP. Since no escaping is provided in this template, it is then possible to inject HTML inside the template by manually crafting the contents of the free-text field.

Patch / fix

  • packagist simplesamlphp/simplesamlphp 1.18.4
  • simplesamlphp simplesamlphp 1.18.4
  • simplesamlphp Debian 14, Debian 12 1.18.4-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-5226

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Exploit prediction

0.54% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 45% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 4.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
NVD 3.1 5.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
NVD 2.0 3.5 AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N
GitHub 3.1 4.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
packagist simplesamlphp/simplesamlphp
>=1.18.0, <1.18.4
1.18.4

Affected products

  • simplesamlphp SimpleSAMLphp

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.