CVE-2014-9720 Tornado XSRF cookie allows side-channel attack against TLS (BREACH attack)
Remote attackers can exploit HTTP compression to leak CSRF tokens via BREACH attacks, enabling potential CSRF bypasses in applications using Tornado.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- A user has to click or open something
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2014-9720?
CVE-2014-9720 is a medium-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 24 Jan 2020. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Official description
Tornado before 3.2.2 sends arbitrary responses that contain a fixed CSRF token and may be sent with HTTP compression, which makes it easier for remote attackers to conduct a BREACH attack and determine this token via a series of crafted requests.
Weakness: CWE-203
Which versions are affected by CVE-2014-9720?
3 open source packages ship an affected version, including tornado. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
tornado PyPI | All versions | 3.2.2 |
tornado PyPI | All versions | 3.2.2 |
tornado PyPI | All versions | 3.2.2 |
Linux distribution packages (8)
python-backports.ssl_match_hostname SUSE:Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 | All versions | 3.4.0.2-15.1 |
python-tornado SUSE:Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 | All versions | 4.2.1-11.1 |
python-backports.ssl_match_hostname SUSE:Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP1 | All versions | 3.4.0.2-15.1 |
python-tornado SUSE:Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP1 | All versions | 4.2.1-11.1 |
python-backports.ssl_match_hostname SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 12 | All versions | 3.4.0.2-15.1 |
python-tornado SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 12 | All versions | 4.2.1-11.1 |
python-backports.ssl_match_hostname SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 12 SP1 | All versions | 3.4.0.2-15.1 |
python-tornado SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 12 SP1 | All versions | 4.2.1-11.1 |
Products include Tornadoweb Tornado.
How do I fix CVE-2014-9720?
Upgrade tornado to 3.2.2 or later.
Is CVE-2014-9720 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2014-9720 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in n/a
- CVE-2026-31958 Tornado has a DoS due to too many multipart parts
- CVE-2025-67725 Tornado is Vulnerable to Quadratic DoS via Repeated Header Coalescing
- CVE-2025-67726 Tornado is Vulnerable to Quadratic DoS via Crafted Multipart Parameters
- CVE-2024-52804 Tornado has HTTP cookie parsing DoS vulnerability
- CVE-2026-35536 Tornado has incomplete validation of cookie attributes
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2014-9720, DLA-279-1, DLA-475-1, GHSA-8vpw-mgpf-mpvv, MGASA-2015-0251, PYSEC-2020-213 and 1 more.