CVE-2020-5227 Feedgen Vulnerable to XML Denial of Service Attacks
Attackers can cause denial of service in applications using feedgen by supplying malicious XML content that triggers excessive resource consumption.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2020-5227?
CVE-2020-5227 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in lkiesow python-feedgen, published on 28 Jan 2020. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Official description
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.
Weakness: CWE-776
Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-5227?
3 open source packages ship an affected version, including feedgen. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
feedgen PyPI | All versions | 0.9.0 |
feedgen PyPI | All versions | 0.9.0 |
feedgen PyPI | All versions | 0.9.0 |
Products include Feedgen Project Feedgen.
How do I fix CVE-2020-5227?
Upgrade feedgen to 0.9.0 or later.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2020-5227 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-5227 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-g8q7-xv52-hf9f, PYSEC-2020-231.