CVE-2020-26230
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 · uneditedRadar COVID is the official COVID-19 exposure notification app for Spain. In affected versions of Radar COVID, identification and de-anonymization of COVID-19 positive users that upload Radar COVID TEKs to the Radar COVID server is possible. This vulnerability enables the identification and de-anonymization of COVID-19 positive users when using Radar COVID. The vulnerability is caused by the fact that Radar COVID connections to the server (uploading of TEKs to the backend) are only made by COVID-19 positives. Therefore, any on-path observer with the ability to monitor traffic between the app and the server can identify which users had a positive test. Such an adversary can be the mobile network operator (MNO) if the connection is done through a mobile network, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) if the connection is done through the Internet (e.g., a home network), a VPN provider used by the user, the local network operator in the case of enterprise networks, or any eavesdropper with access to the same network (WiFi or Ethernet) as the user as could be the case of public WiFi hotspots deployed at shopping centers, airports, hotels, and coffee shops. The attacker may also de-anonymize the user. For this additional stage to succeed, the adversary needs to correlate Radar COVID traffic to other identifiable information from the victim. This could be achieved by associating the connection to a contract with the name of the victim or by associating Radar COVID traffic to other user-generated flows containing identifiers in the clear (e.g., HTTP cookies or other mobile flows sending unique identifiers like the IMEI or the AAID without encryption). The former can be executed, for instance, by the Internet Service Provider or the MNO. The latter can be executed by any on-path adversary, such as the network provider or even the cloud provider that hosts more than one service accessed by the victim. The farther the adversary is either from the victim (the client) or the end-point (the server), the less likely it may be that the adversary has access to re-identification information. The vulnerability has been mitigated with the injection of dummy traffic from the application to the backend. Dummy traffic is generated by all users independently of whether they are COVID-19 positive or not. The issue was fixed in iOS in version 1.0.8 (uniform distribution), 1.1.0 (exponential distribution), Android in version 1.0.7 (uniform distribution), 1.1.0 (exponential distribution), Backend in version 1.1.2-RELEASE. For more information see the referenced GitHub Security Advisory.
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 analysisThe application discloses data — error detail, internal paths, tokens, or other users' records — to someone who shouldn't see it. On its own it can look minor, but it hands attackers the map they need for a larger attack. Remediation is about minimising what's returned and enforcing authorization on every piece of data.
General guidance for the information exposure 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< 1.1.2< 1.0.7< 1.0.8< 1.1.0CVSS 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
- High
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
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 data1.0.71.0.81.1.0
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-26230 — 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-2020-26230 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