Exposed dangerous functionality in dom4j

1) Exposed dangerous method or function

EUVDB-ID: #VU28238

Risk: Medium

CVSSv3.1: 4.2 [CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2020-10683

CWE-ID: CWE-749 - Exposed Dangerous Method or Function

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to abuse implemented functionality.

The vulnerability exists due to dom4j allows by default external DTDs and External Entities. A remote attacker can abuse this functionality and perform XXE attack against application that uses dom4j default configuration.

Mitigation

Install updates from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

dom4j: 2.1.0 - 2.1.2

External links

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1694235
http://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/XML_External_Entity_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet.html
http://github.com/dom4j/dom4j/commit/a8228522a99a02146106672a34c104adbda5c658
http://github.com/dom4j/dom4j/releases/tag/version-2.1.3
http://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20200518-0002/

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.