FailureApplication · Failure Project
CVE-2020-25575
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 · uneditedAn issue was discovered in the failure crate through 0.1.5 for Rust. It may introduce "compatibility hazards" in some applications, and has a type confusion flaw when downcasting. NOTE: This vulnerability only affects products that are no longer supported by the maintainer. NOTE: This may overlap CVE-2019-25010
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 analysisA resource is accessed as one type when it was actually allocated as another, so the code misreads memory layout — in interpreters and language runtimes this is frequently a direct path to code execution. It often arises from unchecked casts on attacker-influenced objects. The fix is strict type checks before casts and memory-safe access patterns.
General guidance for the type confusion class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
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
FailureApplication
<= 0.1.8CVSS 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
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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.
dbcve · scopedMigrate to `anyhow` (for applications) or `thiserror` (for libraries) - the failure crate is deprecated and unmaintained, no fixed version available
- 1. Identify all dependencies that use the `failure` crate by running `cargo tree -p failure` or checking Cargo.lock for failure crate usage
- 2. Replace `failure` with the recommended alternative `anyhow` for error handling (for applications) or `thiserror` (for libraries)
- 3. Update Cargo.toml: Remove `failure = "..."` dependency
- 4. For error handling: Add `anyhow = "1.0"` to Cargo.toml and update error handling code to use `anyhow::Result<T>` and `anyhow::Context`
- 5. For library errors: Add `thiserror = "1.0"` to Cargo.toml and derive `thiserror::Error` instead of `failure::Fail`
- 6. Run `cargo update` to refresh dependencies and remove the vulnerable crate
- 7. Build and test the application to ensure error handling still works correctly
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-25575 — 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-2020-25575 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
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