CVE-2020-15227 — application
CRITICALCVE-2020-15227 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) CWE-74 vulnerability in nette/application. 2 public exploit references exist, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for nette/application — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Potential Remote Code Execution vulnerability
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-15227 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,386 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
nette/application🐘nette/application🐘nette/application🐘nette/application🐘nette/application🐘nette/applicationReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Packages nette/application versions prior to 2.2.10, 2.3.14, 2.4.16, 3.0.6 and nette/nette versions prior to 2.0.19 and 2.1.13 are vulnerable to an code injection attack by passing specially formed parameters to URL that may possibly leading to RCE.
Reported by Cyku Hong from DEVCORE (https://devco.re)
Impact
Code injection, possible remote code execution.
Patches
Fixed in nette/application 2.2.10, 2.3.14, 2.4.16, 3.0.6 and nette/nette 2.0.19 and 2.1.13
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | nette/application | ≥ 2.2.0&&< 2.2.10 | 2.2.10composer require nette/application:^2.2.10 |
| 🐘Packagist | nette/application | ≥ 2.3.0&&< 2.3.14 | 2.3.14composer require nette/application:^2.3.14 |
| 🐘Packagist | nette/application | ≥ 2.4.0&&< 2.4.16 | 2.4.16composer require nette/application:^2.4.16 |
| 🐘Packagist | nette/application | ≥ 3.0.0&&< 3.0.6 | 3.0.6composer require nette/application:^3.0.6 |
| 🐘Packagist | nette/application | ≥ 2.0.0&&< 2.0.19 | 2.0.19composer require nette/application:^2.0.19 |
| 🐘Packagist | nette/application | ≥ 2.1.0&&< 2.1.13 | 2.1.13composer require nette/application:^2.1.13 |
Affected Products
debian linuxdebianapplicationnetteResearch 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 nette/application, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update nette/application to 2.2.10 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-15227 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
How to detect CVE-2020-15227
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2020-15227 -u https://target- Template
- Nette Framework - Remote Code Execution
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected system.
- Remediation
- Apply the latest security patches provided by the Nette Framework to fix the deserialization vulnerability.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (becivells), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-15227 in your dependencies?
Find it across Packagist, including transitive dependencies.