CVE-2018-20164 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-185 vulnerability in uap-core. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2018-20164 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
uap-core Regular Expression Denial of Service issue
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
uap-corenpmDescription
An issue was discovered in regex.yaml (aka regexes.yaml) in UA-Parser UAP-Core before 0.6.0. A Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) issue allows remote attackers to overload a server by setting the User-Agent header in an HTTP(S) request to a value containing a long digit string. (The UAP-Core project contains the vulnerability, propagating to all implementations.)
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | uap-core | all versions | 0.6.0 |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for uap-core. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update uap-core to 0.6.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2018-20164 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2018-20164 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2018-20164. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2018-20164 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2018-20164 across npm dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.