CVE-2020-25614
📋 TL;DR
This vulnerability in xmlquery library versions before 1.3.1 allows attackers to cause denial of service (SIGSEGV crash) by feeding non-XML content to the LoadURL function. Any application using xmlquery to parse XML from untrusted URLs is affected, potentially leading to service disruption.
💻 Affected Systems
- xmlquery library
- Applications using xmlquery Go library
📦 What is this software?
Xmlquery by Xmlquery Project
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Remote code execution or complete service crash affecting availability, though RCE is unspecified in the CVE description.
Likely Case
Denial of service through application crash when processing maliciously crafted responses.
If Mitigated
No impact if proper input validation is implemented or if xmlquery is not used with untrusted URLs.
🎯 Exploit Status
Proof of concept available in GitHub issues. Exploitation requires ability to control URL input to LoadURL function.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 1.3.1
Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/antchfx/xmlquery/compare/v1.3.0...v1.3.1
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Update Go module dependency to xmlquery v1.3.1 or later. 2. Run 'go get github.com/antchfx/xmlquery@v1.3.1'. 3. Rebuild and redeploy affected applications.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Input validation wrapper
allImplement wrapper function that validates response content type before passing to xmlquery
// Go code: validate Content-Type header contains 'application/xml' or 'text/xml' before calling LoadURL
Restrict URL sources
allOnly allow xmlquery.LoadURL to be called with trusted, whitelisted URLs
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement network segmentation to restrict xmlquery usage to trusted internal sources only
- Deploy WAF rules to block malicious content types or patterns in responses
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check go.mod or go.sum for xmlquery dependency version below 1.3.1Check Version:
grep xmlquery go.mod || grep xmlquery go.sumVerify Fix Applied:
Confirm xmlquery version is 1.3.1 or higher in go.mod and verify application doesn't crash with test non-XML responses📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- SIGSEGV crashes in application logs
- Panic stack traces mentioning xmlquery.InnerText
Network Indicators:
- Unusual outbound HTTP requests to external URLs from application
- Responses with non-XML content types to xmlquery calls
SIEM Query:
process.name: "your_app" AND log.message: "panic" AND log.message: "xmlquery"