Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2020-5226


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.


Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 4.4, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network but requires specific conditions to be met though user interaction is required requiring only low-level privileges . The vulnerability impacts limited data confidentiality, limited integrity, for affected systems. Impacting 1 product from simplesamlphp organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Reported in 2020, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.


Published

2020-01-24T22:15:23.020

Last Modified

2024-11-21T05:33:43.023

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 4.4 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N

  • Access Vector: NETWORK
  • Access Complexity: MEDIUM
  • Authentication: SINGLE
  • Confidentiality Impact: NONE
  • Integrity Impact: PARTIAL
  • Availability Impact: NONE
Exploitability Score

6.8

Impact Score

2.9

Weaknesses
  • Type: Secondary
    CWE-79
  • Type: Primary
    CWE-79

Affected Vendors & Products
Type Vendor Product Version/Range Vulnerable?
Application simplesamlphp simplesamlphp < 1.18.4 Yes

References

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For simplesamlphp's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.