CWE-290Weakness · CWE-290

CVE-2020-37056

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-01-30
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges 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
Crystal Shard http-protection 0.2.0 contains an IP spoofing vulnerability that allows attackers to bypass protection middleware by manipulating request headers. Attackers can hardcode consistent IP values across X-Forwarded-For, X-Client-IP, and X-Real-IP headers to circumvent security checks and gain unauthorized access.

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 · moderate confidence

The http-protection Crystal Shard library <=0.2.0 trusts client-supplied IP headers (X-Forwarded-For, X-Client-IP, X-Real-IP) without proper validation, allowing attackers to spoof their source IP address and bypass IP-based access controls and rate limiting.

MitigationReplace trust in client-supplied headers with validated source IP from the underlying TCP connection, or upgrade to a patched version of http-protection that implements proper IP validation and origin verification.

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

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
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

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 http-protection as a project dependency
    Examine your project's shard.yml file for http-protection under dependencies, or check shard.lock for the installed version
    Affected if http-protection is listed as a dependency with version <=0.2.0 or no version pin that resolves to <=0.2.0
  2. Verify the installed http-protection version
    Run 'shards version' or inspect the version field in shard.lock for the http-protection entry
    Affected if The installed version is 0.2.0 or lower
  3. Locate http-protection configuration in your application
    Search source files for 'HttpProtection' or 'http_protection' module initialization, typically in config or main application file
    Affected if The library is instantiated and configured in your application code
  4. Determine if client-supplied headers are being trusted
    Search for code that passes X-Forwarded-For, X-Client-IP, or X-Real-IP headers to trust or ip_headers configuration options, or inspect the HttpProtection::Configuration object
    Affected if The configuration explicitly trusts or uses X-Forwarded-For, X-Client-IP, or X-Real-IP headers without additional validation
  5. Check if IP-based access controls or rate limiting rely on http-protection
    Search for usage of HttpProtection::IPAccess or rate limiting middleware that references the trusted headers
    Affected if Access control lists or rate limiters depend on the potentially spoofed IP from client-supplied headers

You are affected if http-protection version 0.2.0 or lower is in use and your application configuration trusts X-Forwarded-For, X-Client-IP, or X-Real-IP headers for access control or rate limiting decisions.

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
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Replace trust in client-supplied headers with validated source IP from the underlying TCP connection, or upgrade to a patched version of http-protection that implements proper IP validation and origin verification.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
18.0 hours of engineering $3,200
Get help mitigating

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $5,120.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-37056 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-37056 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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.

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
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data