CVE-2020-36649 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-1333 vulnerability in papaparse. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for papaparse — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Regular Expression Denial of Service in papaparse
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-36649 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% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
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.
papaparsenpmDescription
A vulnerability was found in mholt PapaParse up to 5.1.x. It has been classified as problematic. Affected is an unknown function of the file papaparse.js. The manipulation leads to inefficient regular expression complexity. Upgrading to version 5.2.0 is able to address this issue. The name of the patch is 235a12758cd77266d2e98fd715f53536b34ad621. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component. The identifier of this vulnerability is VDB-218004.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | papaparse | all versions | 5.2.0npm install papaparse@5.2.0 |
Affected Products
papaparsepapaparseResearch 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 papaparse, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update papaparse to 5.2.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-36649 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-36649 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.