CVE-2020-15169
MEDIUMCVE-2020-15169 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in actionview. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2020-15169 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
XSS in Action View
Blast Radius
actionview💎actionviewReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects RubyGems packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
In Action View before versions 5.2.4.4 and 6.0.3.3 there is a potential Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Action View's translation helpers. Views that allow the user to control the default (not found) value of the t and translate helpers could be susceptible to XSS attacks. When an HTML-unsafe string is passed as the default for a missing translation key named html or ending in _html, the default string is incorrectly marked as HTML-safe and not escaped. This is patched in versions 6.0.3.3 and 5.2.4.4. A workaround without upgrading is proposed in the source advisory.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | actionview | all versions | 5.2.4.4 |
| 💎RubyGems | actionview | ≥ 6.0.0.0&&< 6.0.3.3 | 6.0.3.3 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for actionview. 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 actionview to 5.2.4.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-15169 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-2020-15169 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-2020-15169. 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-2020-15169 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2020-15169 across RubyGems dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.