CVE-2020-7790
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 · uneditedThis affects the package spatie/browsershot from 0.0.0. By specifying a URL in the file:// protocol an attacker is able to include arbitrary files in the resultant PDF.
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 · high confidenceThe spatie/browsershot package before the fix allows attackers to read arbitrary local files via the file:// protocol in the URL parameter, which gets processed and included in the generated PDF output. This is a Local File Inclusion (LFI) vulnerability stemming from improper restriction of the URL protocol handler.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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 dataall versionsCVSS 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
- Low
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify installed Browsershot versionRun 'composer show spatie/browsershot' to see the installed version, or check your composer.lock file for the spatie/browsershot package entryAffected if The version is any version before the fix was applied (the vulnerability affects all versions until sanitization was added)
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Inspect URL handling codeSearch your codebase for places where user input is passed to the Browsershot::url() method - look for patterns like Browsershot::url($request->input('url')) or similarAffected if User-controlled input is passed directly to Browsershot::url() without validation
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Check for file:// protocol validationSearch your codebase for validation logic that checks or strips the file:// protocol before passing URLs to Browsershot - look for strpos, preg_match, or similar checks on the URL parameterAffected if No code exists to reject or sanitize URLs starting with file:// before they reach Browsershot
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Test PDF generation with file:// URLIf you have access to the application, invoke the PDF generation feature with a URL like 'file:///etc/passwd' or 'file://C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts' and check if the file contents appear in the generated PDFAffected if The PDF output includes contents of the local file specified in the file:// URL
You are affected if your application uses spatie/browsershot and passes user-supplied URLs to it without validating or blocking the file:// protocol.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataUpdate spatie/browsershot to a version that blocks or properly sanitizes file:// protocol URLs. As a compensating control, implement input validation to reject URLs starting with file:// before passing them to browsershot.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation3.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-7790 — 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-2020-7790 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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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
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