CVE-2020-15169 — actionview
MEDIUMCVE-2020-15169 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in actionview. A fix is available for actionview — see the affected versions and patch details below.
XSS in Action View
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-15169 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,166 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
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 | 5.2.4.4bundle update actionview --conservative |
| 💎RubyGems | actionview | ≥ 6.0.0.0&&< 6.0.3.3 | 6.0.3.3bundle update actionview --conservative |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for actionview, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2020-15169 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
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.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
Red Hat CloudForms and Red Hat Satellite 6 ships affected ActiveView RubyGem, however, those are not vulnerable since product code do not use such unsafe implementation.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Satellite 6.9 for RHEL 7 | ansible-collection-redhat-satellite-0:2.0.1-1.el7sat | RHSA-2021:1313 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-15169 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2020-15169 across RubyGems dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.