CVE-2020-36993
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 · uneditedLimeSurvey 4.3.10 contains a stored cross-site scripting vulnerability in the Survey Menu functionality of the administration panel. Attackers can inject malicious SVG scripts through the Surveymenu[title] and Surveymenu[parent_id] parameters to execute arbitrary JavaScript in administrative contexts.
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 analysisUntrusted input is placed into a web page without being neutralised, so an attacker's markup or script executes in another user's browser. That can hijack sessions, capture keystrokes, or silently perform actions as the victim. Fixing it properly means context-aware output encoding everywhere data meets HTML, backed by a content-security policy as a second line of defence.
General guidance for the cross-site scripting (xss) 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<= 4.3.10CVSS 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
- Required
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/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.
dbcve · scopedLatest stable LimeSurvey version (4.4.x or newer)
- 1. Back up your LimeSurvey database and files before proceeding with any upgrade.
- 2. Download the latest stable LimeSurvey version from the official repository at https://github.com/LimeSurvey/LimeSurvey/releases
- 3. Replace the existing application files with the new version files, preserving your configuration and upload directories.
- 4. Run the database upgrade script by accessing the LimeSurvey URL - the system will prompt for upgrade if needed.
- 5. After upgrade, clear any application caches to ensure new security headers are active.
- 6. Verify the fix by logging into the admin panel and testing that the Survey Menu functionality properly sanitizes input in the Surveymenu[title] and Surveymenu[parent_id] fields.
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-36993 — 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-2020-36993 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
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- 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