XML External Entity injection in Apache Tika

1) XML External Entity injection

EUVDB-ID: #VU38176

Risk: High

CVSSv3.1: 7.7 [CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2016-4434

CWE-ID: CWE-611 - Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference ('XXE')

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote non-authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code.

Apache Tika before 1.13 does not properly initialize the XML parser or choose handlers, which might allow remote attackers to conduct XML External Entity (XXE) attacks via vectors involving (1) spreadsheets in OOXML files and (2) XMP metadata in PDF and other file formats, a related issue to CVE-2016-2175.

Mitigation

Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Apache Tika: 1.12

External links

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017-0248.html
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017-0249.html
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017-0272.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/538500/100/0/threaded
http://lists.apache.org/thread.html/708d94141126eac03011144a971a6411fcac16d9c248d1d535a39451@%3Csolr-user.lucene.apache.org%3E
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/tika-dev/201605.mbox/%3C1705136517.1175366.1464278135251.JavaMail.yahoo%40mail.yahoo.com%3E

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

Yes. This vulnerability can be exploited by a remote non-authenticated attacker via the Internet.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.