How severe is CVE-2020-15239?

CVE-2020-15239 has a CVSS score of 3.5/10, rated LOW. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2020-15239?

CVE-2020-15239 affects the following packages: xmpp-http-upload (PyPI). Ecosystems affected: PyPI.

How do I fix CVE-2020-15239?

Update xmpp-http-upload to 0.4.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-15239 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2020-15239 in my PyPI dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for xmpp-http-upload, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate CVE-2020-15239 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.

Is CVE-2020-15239 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2020-15239 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2020-15239?

CVE-2020-15239 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 1.9%, placing it in the 79th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2020-15239?

CVE-2020-15239 is classified as Path Traversal (CWE-22). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation. This is a high-impact weakness class that often enables remote code execution or data exposure.

When was CVE-2020-15239 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2020-15239 was published on October 6, 2020 and was last updated on July 9, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🐍

🐍 PyPI

Not in CISA KEV

LOW severity

CVE-2020-15239 — xmpp-http-upload

LOWFix: horazont/xmpp-http-upload@8205654

CVE-2020-15239 is a low-severity (CVSS 3.5) Path Traversal vulnerability in xmpp-http-upload. A fix is available for xmpp-http-upload — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Directory Traversal vulnerability in GET/PUT allows attackers to Disclose Information or Write Files via a crafted GET/PUT request

Also known asGHSA-hwv5-w8gm-fq9fPYSEC-2020-158

Published

Oct 6, 2020

Updated

Jul 9, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Oct 10, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

1.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs79th percentile — riskier than 79% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2020-15239 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 385,987 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected

🐍xmpp-http-upload

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

Impact

Information Disclosure

When the GET method is attacked, attackers can read files which have a .data suffix and which are accompanied by a JSON file with the .meta suffix. This can lead to Information Disclosure and in some shared-hosting scenarios also to circumvention of authentication or other limitations on the outbound (GET) traffic.

For example, in a scenario where a single server has multiple instances of the application running (with separate DATA_ROOT settings), an attacker who has knowledge about the directory structure is able to read files from any other instance to which the process has read access.

If instances have individual authentication (for example, HTTP authentication via a reverse proxy, source IP based filtering) or other restrictions (such as quotas), attackers may circumvent those limits in such a scenario by using the Directory Traversal to retrieve data from the other instances.

File Write

If the associated XMPP server (or anyone knowing the SECRET_KEY) is malicious, they can write files outside the DATA_ROOT. The files which are written are constrained to have the .meta and the .data suffixes; the .meta file will contain the JSON with the Content-Type of the original request and the .data file will contain the payload.

Patches

PR #12 fixes the issue. The PR has been merged into version 0.4.0 and 0.4.0 has been released and pushed to PyPI. Users are advised to upgrade immediately.

Workarounds

Apache can apparently be configured to filter such malicious paths when reverse-proxying.
There are no other workarounds known.

References

Pull Request #12

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐍PyPI	`xmpp-http-upload`	all versions	0.4.0`pip install --upgrade 'xmpp-http-upload==0.4.0'`

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations

Application

xmpp-http-uploadxmpp-http-upload_project

< 0.4.0

range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for xmpp-http-upload, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update xmpp-http-upload to 0.4.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-15239 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Impact #### Information Disclosure When the GET method is attacked, attackers can read files which have a `.data` suffix and which are accompanied by a JSON file with the `.meta` suffix. This can lead to Information Disclosure and in some shared-hosting scenarios also to circumvention of authentication or other limitations on the outbound (GET) traffic. For example, in a scenario where a single server has multiple instances of the application running (with separate DATA_ROOT settings), an attacker who has knowledge about the directory structure is able to read files from any other insta