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CVE-2020-36851 Detail

Description

Rob -- W / cors-anywhere instances configured as an open proxy allow unauthenticated external users to induce the server to make HTTP requests to arbitrary targets (SSRF). Because the proxy forwards requests and headers, an attacker can reach internal-only endpoints and link-local metadata services, retrieve instance role credentials or other sensitive metadata, and interact with internal APIs and services that are not intended to be internet-facing. The vulnerability is exploitable by sending crafted requests to the proxy with the target resource encoded in the URL; many cors-anywhere deployments forward arbitrary methods and headers (including PUT), which can permit exploitation of IMDSv2 workflows as well as access to internal management APIs. Successful exploitation can result in theft of cloud credentials, unauthorized access to internal services, remote code execution or privilege escalation (depending on reachable backends), data exfiltration, and full compromise of cloud resources. Mitigation includes: restricting the proxy to trusted origins or authentication, whitelisting allowed target hosts, preventing access to link-local and internal IP ranges, removing support for unsafe HTTP methods/headers, enabling cloud provider mitigations, and deploying network-level protections.


Metrics

NVD enrichment efforts reference publicly available information to associate vector strings. CVSS information contributed by other sources is also displayed.
CVSS 4.0 Severity and Vector Strings:

NIST CVSS score
NIST: NVD
N/A
NVD assessment not yet provided.

Nist CVSS score does not match with CNA score
CNA:  VulnCheck
CVSS-B 9.5 CRITICAL
Vector:  CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H

References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools

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URL Source(s) Tag(s)
https://github.com/Rob--W/cors-anywhere/issues/152 VulnCheck
https://github.com/Rob--W/cors-anywhere/issues/521 VulnCheck
https://github.com/Rob--W/cors-anywhere/issues/78 VulnCheck
https://github.com/SocketDev/security-research/security/advisories/GHSA-9wmg-93pw-fc3g VulnCheck
https://www.certik.com/resources/blog/cors-anywhere-dangers-of-misconfigured-third-party-software VulnCheck
https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/rob-w-cors-anywhere-misconfigured-cors-proxy-allows-ssrf VulnCheck

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-ID CWE Name Source
CWE-942 Permissive Cross-domain Policy with Untrusted Domains VulnCheck  
CWE-918 Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) VulnCheck  

Change History

2 change records found show changes

Quick Info

CVE Dictionary Entry:
CVE-2020-36851
NVD Published Date:
09/25/2025
NVD Last Modified:
09/26/2025
Source:
VulnCheck