Skip to content
Fencer Intel
medium 4.4

CVE-2020-5227 json

Feedgen Vulnerable to XML Denial of Service Attacks

published 6y ago modified 4mo ago also GHSA-g8q7-xv52-hf9f , PYSEC-2020-231 , EUVD-2020-0079

cvss
4.4
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.2%
EPSS 2.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 82%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Feedgen (python feedgen) before 0.9.0 is susceptible to XML Denial of Service attacks. The *feedgen* library allows supplying XML as content for some of the available fields. This XML will be parsed and integrated into the existing XML tree. During this process, feedgen is vulnerable to XML Denial of Service Attacks (e.g. XML Bomb). This becomes a concern in particular if feedgen is used to include content from untrused sources and if XML (including XHTML) is directly included instead of providing plain tex content only. This problem has been fixed in feedgen 0.9.0 which disallows XML entity expansion and external resources.

Patch / fix

  • pypi feedgen 0.9.0
  • feedgen_project feedgen 0.9.0

Is CVE-2020-5227 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

Exploit prediction

2.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 82% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • docs.microsoft.com https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/msdn-magazine/2009/november/xml-denial-of-service-attacks-and-defenses referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 4.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
GitHub 3.1 4.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi feedgen
<0.9.0
0.9.0

Affected products

  • lkiesow python-feedgen

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-776 Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs

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.