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Digital Experience PlatformApplication · Liferay

CVE-2020-15839

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2020-09-22
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 7.3.3 or later.
See remediation →
71/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Liferay Portal before 7.3.3, and Liferay DXP 7.1 before fix pack 18 and 7.2 before fix pack 6, does not restrict the size of a multipart/form-data POST action, which allows remote authenticated users to conduct denial-of-service attacks by uploading large files.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

Lifera Portal before 7.3.3 and Lifer DXP 7.1 before fix pack 18 and 7.2 before fix pack 6 lack proper restrictions on multipart/form-data POST request sizes, allowing authenticated remote users to upload arbitrarily large files and exhaust server resources, causing denial of service.

MitigationApply the appropriate Lifer patches (fix pack 18 for DXP 7.1, fix pack 6 for DXP 7.2, or upgrade to Portal 7.3.3+) and configure file upload size limits in the Lifer application configuration to prevent resource exhaustion.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Digital Experience PlatformApplication
Affected:= 7.1= 7.2
Liferay PortalApplication
Affected:< 7.3.3

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify Lifer Portal or DXP version
    Check the portal's version by reviewing the portal-ext.properties file, the Lifer Control Panel > Configuration > Server Administration > General page, or the liferay-upgrade.properties file in the Lifer home directory. Look for version numbers like 7.1.x, 7.2.x, or 7.3.x
    Affected if The version is Lifer Portal < 7.3.3, or Lifer DXP 7.1 (any version) or DXP 7.2 (any version) before applying fix packs 18 and 6 respectively, and file upload size limits are not configured or are set to unlimited.
  2. Verify file upload is enabled
    Navigate to Lifer Control Panel > Configuration > System Settings > File Uploads. Check if the 'Enable File Upload' setting is turned ON, or review the 'upload.servlet.enabled' property in portal-ext.properties
    Affected if File upload functionality is enabled and no maximum upload size has been set.
  3. Check multipart request size limit configuration
    Review portal-ext.properties or portal-setup-wizard.properties for the 'upload.servlet.max.request.size' setting. If using Lifer 7.1/7.2 DXP, also check in Control Panel > Configuration > System Settings > File Uploads for the 'Maximum Upload Request Size' value. Default is typically unrestricted or very large if not configured.
    Affected if The upload.servlet.max.request.size property is missing, commented out, or set to a value significantly larger than reasonable (for example, -1 or 2147483647), allowing arbitrarily large file uploads.
  4. Verify session-based upload limits
    Check for the 'upload.servlet.max.file.size' setting in portal-ext.properties or in Control Panel > System Settings > File Uploads. This controls individual file size limits within a request.
    Affected if This setting is also unset or set to an extremely large value, allowing large individual files to be uploaded in multipart requests.

You are affected if you are running Lifer Portal below 7.3.3 or DXP 7.1/7.2 without the respective fix packs, and the multipart file upload size limits (upload.servlet.max.request.size and upload.servlet.max.file.size) are either not configured or set to unlimited/unrestricted values, allowing authenticated users to exhaust server resources.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to 7.3.3 or later
Fixed in 7.3.3
Interim mitigation

Apply the appropriate Lifer patches (fix pack 18 for DXP 7.1, fix pack 6 for DXP 7.2, or upgrade to Portal 7.3.3+) and configure file upload size limits in the Lifer application configuration to prevent resource exhaustion.

Fix this in Digital Experience Platform Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
14.0 hours of engineering $2,490
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-15839 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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