CVE-2020-5225
MEDIUMCVE-2020-5225 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.4) CWE-532 vulnerability in simplesamlphp/simplesamlphp. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2020-5225 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Log injection in SimpleSAMLphp
Real-World Exposure
simplesamlphp/simplesamlphpReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Log injection in SimpleSAMLphp before version 1.18.4. The www/erroreport.php script, which receives error reports and sends them via email to the system administrator, did not properly sanitize the report identifier obtained from the request. This allows an attacker, under specific circumstances, to inject new log lines by manually crafting this report ID. When configured to use the file logging handler, SimpleSAMLphp will output all its logs by appending each log line to a given file. Since the reportID parameter received in a request sent to www/errorreport.php was not properly sanitized, it was possible to inject newline characters into it, effectively allowing a malicious user to inject new log lines with arbitrary content.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | simplesamlphp/simplesamlphp | all versions | 1.18.4 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for simplesamlphp/simplesamlphp. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update simplesamlphp/simplesamlphp to 1.18.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-5225 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 pinpoints whether CVE-2020-5225 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2020-5225. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-5225 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2020-5225 across Packagist dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.