What is CVE-2020-5501?

CVE-2020-5501 is a medium-severity vulnerability in phpBB, classified under Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF). CVSS score: 4.3/10. Published 2020-01-15.

How severe is CVE-2020-5501?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.3 out of 10.

CSRF in phpBB

CVE-2020-5501

phpBB 3.2.8 allows a CSRF attack that can modify a group avatar.

Vulnerability class: CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery)

Published 2020-01-15 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 4.3 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.004 (28.9th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 29th percentile — 28.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.004 · newest: 0.004 · change: 0.000

Affected products

phpBB — versions 3.2.8

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-352 — Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

References

blog.phpbb.com/category/security/ (Vendor Advisory)
www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php (Vendor Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-5501?: CVE-2020-5501 is a medium-severity vulnerability in phpBB, classified under Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF). CVSS score: 4.3/10. Published 2020-01-15.
How severe is CVE-2020-5501?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.3 out of 10.