CVE-2020-15840
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 · uneditedIn Liferay Portal before 7.3.1, Liferay Portal 6.2 EE, and Liferay DXP 7.2, DXP 7.1 and DXP 7.0, the property 'portlet.resource.id.banned.paths.regexp' can be bypassed with doubled encoded URLs.
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 confidenceLifter Portal and DXP contain a security bypass vulnerability where the 'portlet.resource.id.banned.paths.regexp' property, intended to block access to restricted resources, can be circumvented using double-encoded URLs. An attacker could exploit this to access paths that should be blocked by the banned paths regex filter.
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= 7.0= 7.1= 7.2< 7.3.1= 6.2CVSS 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
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
-
Identify Lifer Portal/DXP versionCheck the portal's version number in the control panel (Control Panel > Configuration > Server Administration > Version) or examine the portal-impl.jar manifest file in the Lifer installation directoryAffected if The version is 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 6.2, or any version below 7.3.1 for the Portal edition
-
Verify banned paths configuration existsLocate the portal-ext.properties or portal-pre-ext.properties file in the Lifer home directory and search for the property 'portlet.resource.id.banned.paths.regexp'Affected if The property is defined and contains patterns meant to restrict access to certain resources
-
Confirm banned paths are in useCheck the Lifer portal's web.xml or examine the portlet container configuration for filters that reference 'portlet.resource.id.banned.paths.regexp'Affected if The banned paths filter is active and processing requests through the portlet resource ID validation mechanism
-
Test for double-encoded URL bypass susceptibilitySubmit a request with a double-encoded path that should be blocked (for example: %252F instead of %2F) to a portlet resource endpoint and observe if the banned path filter is bypassedAffected if Double-encoded URLs successfully access paths that should be blocked by the banned paths regexp filter
You are affected if your Lifer installation version is 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 6.2, or below 7.3.1 AND you have the portlet.resource.id.banned.paths.regexp property configured with patterns meant to restrict resource access.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 data7.3.1
Upgrade to Lifer Portal 7.3.1 or later, or apply the relevant security patch for DXP 7.0-7.2. This is a server-side configuration fix requiring version upgrade.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing5.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,464.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-15840 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-15840 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.
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.
- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data