Spring FrameworkFramework / library · VMware
CVE-2020-5397
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 · uneditedSpring Framework, versions 5.2.x prior to 5.2.3 are vulnerable to CSRF attacks through CORS preflight requests that target Spring MVC (spring-webmvc module) or Spring WebFlux (spring-webflux module) endpoints. Only non-authenticated endpoints are vulnerable because preflight requests should not include credentials and therefore requests should fail authentication. However a notable exception to this are Chrome based browsers when using client certificates for authentication since Chrome sends TLS client certificates in CORS preflight requests in violation of spec requirements. No HTTP body can be sent or received as a result of this attack.
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 can't tell whether a state-changing request was genuinely intended by the user, so an attacker can trick a logged-in victim's browser into making it. That can transfer funds, change settings, or create accounts silently. Remediation is anti-CSRF tokens — or equivalent same-site protections — on every state-changing request.
General guidance for the cross-site request forgery (csrf) 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
Spring FrameworkFramework / library
>= 5.2.0, < 5.2.3= 13.3.0.1= 11.3= 12.0>= 8.0.0, <= 8.2.2= 8.1.1= 8.2.0= 8.2.1= 12.5.0= 8.1.1= 8.2.0= 8.2.1= 13.2.1.0CVSS 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
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/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.
From vendor data5.2.3
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-5397 — 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-2020-5397 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