CVE-2020-36568 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in github.com/revel/revel. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for github.com/revel/revel — see the affected versions and patch details below.
revel is vulnerable to resource exhaustion
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2020-36568.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
github.com/revel/revelReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Unsanitized input in the query parser in github.com/revel/revel before v1.0.0 allows remote attackers to cause resource exhaustion via memory allocation.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/revel/revel | all versions | 1.0.0go get github.com/revel/revel@v1.0.0 |
Affected Products
revelrevelResearch 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 github.com/revel/revel, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/revel/revel to 1.0.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-36568 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-36568 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.