# CVE-2014-9720: Tornado XSRF cookie allows side-channel attack against TLS (BREACH attack)

Source: https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2014-9720-tornado-xsrf-cookie-allows-side-channel-attack-against-tls-breach  
Publisher: Junglewise Threat Intelligence, https://junglewise.ai/threats  
Published: 2020-01-24  
License: CC BY 4.0 with a link back

CVE-2014-9720 · Severity: low · CVSS 3.1 · Published 2020-01-24

Tornado before 3.2.2 sends arbitrary responses that contain a fixed CSRF token and may be sent with HTTP compression, which makes it easier for remote attackers to conduct a BREACH attack and determine this token via a series of crafted requests.

Technologies: [tornado (PyPI)](https://junglewise.ai/threats/technologies/tornado). Vendors: [PyPI](https://junglewise.ai/threats/vendors/pypi).

## Quick answers

**Is CVE-2014-9720 exploited in the wild?** No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2014-9720 being exploited in the wild.

**How severe is CVE-2014-9720?** Low severity, with a CVSS score of 3.1, published 24 January 2020.

**Which products and versions are affected?** tornado (PyPI) ECOSYSTEM:introduced=0,fixed=3.2.2, GIT:introduced=0,fixed=1c36307463b1e8affae100bf9386948e6c1b2308|ECOSYSTEM:introduced=0,fixed=3.2.2.

**Is there a fix for CVE-2014-9720?** Yes. tornado (PyPI): upgrade to 3.2.2 or later. Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.

**Am I affected by CVE-2014-9720?** Check whether you run tornado (PyPI) at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.

## How to fix

- tornado (PyPI): upgrade to 3.2.2 or later

  ```sh
  pip install "tornado>=3.2.2"
  ```


## Affected products

- tornado (PyPI) ECOSYSTEM:introduced=0,fixed=3.2.2, GIT:introduced=0,fixed=1c36307463b1e8affae100bf9386948e6c1b2308|ECOSYSTEM:introduced=0,fixed=3.2.2

## Identifiers

- CVE-2014-9720
- GHSA-8vpw-mgpf-mpvv
- PYSEC-2020-213

## Related threats

- [Tornado open redirect in RedirectHandler URL templates](https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-116578-tornado-is-a-python-web-framework-and-asynchronous-networking)
- [Tornado HTTP header parser quadratic CPU consumption via line folding](https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-116577-tornado-is-a-python-web-framework-and-asynchronous-networking)
- [Tornado HTTP/1.1 chunked encoding denial of service](https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-115927-tornado-is-a-python-web-framework-and-asynchronous-networking)
- [Tornado StaticFileHandler path traversal via symlinks](https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-103263-tornado-staticfilehandler-follows-symlinks-outside-static-root)
- [Tornado CurlAsyncHTTPClient unbounded memory accumulation in decompression](https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-103262-tornado-curlasynchttpclient-enforces-no-response-size-limit)