CVE-2020-26291 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Improper Input Validation vulnerability in urijs. A fix is available for urijs — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Hostname spoofing via backslashes in URL
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-2020-26291 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
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.
urijsnpmDescription
URI.js is a javascript URL mutation library (npm package urijs). In URI.js before version 1.19.4, the hostname can be spoofed by using a backslash (\) character followed by an at (@) character. If the hostname is used in security decisions, the decision may be incorrect. Depending on library usage and attacker intent, impacts may include allow/block list bypasses, SSRF attacks, open redirects, or other undesired behavior. For example the URL https://expected-example.com\@observed-example.com will incorrectly return observed-example.com if using an affected version. Patched versions correctly return expected-example.com. Patched versions match the behavior of other parsers which implement the WHATWG URL specification, including web browsers and Node's built-in URL class. Version 1.19.4 is patched against all known payload variants. Version 1.19.3 has a partial patch but is still vulnerable to a payload variant.]
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | urijs | all versions | 1.19.4npm install urijs@1.19.4 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for urijs, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update urijs to 1.19.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-26291 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-2020-26291 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2020-26291. 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.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Quay 3 | quay/quay-rhel8:v3.6.0-62 | RHSA-2021:3917 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-26291 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2020-26291 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.