Tika
CVE-2018-11796
HIGH
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A02:2025 - Security Misconfiguration
ASVS 5.0
V13 - Configuration XML external entity prevention
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 2 tactics: Initial Access, Collection The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 7.5 (HIGH). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction not required. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote attacker could read arbitrary files or perform SSRF through XML processing by sending crafted requests to the affected application. No authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
In Apache Tika 1.19 (CVE-2018-11761), we added an entity expansion limit for XML parsing. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
RemediationAI
No vendor patch is available at time of analysis. Monitor vendor advisories for updates. Disable external entity processing in XML parsers, use JSON instead of XML where possible.
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in maven
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as XML External Entity (XXE) (CWE-611), which allows attackers to read arbitrary files or perform SSRF through XML processing. In Apache Tika 1.19 (CVE-2018-11761), we added an entity expansion limit for XML parsing. However, Tika reuses SAXParsers and calls reset() after each parse, which, for Xerces2 parsers, as per the documentation, removes the user-specified SecurityManager and thus removes entity expansion limits after the first parse. Apache Tika versions from 0.1 to 1.19 are therefore still vulnerable to entity expansions which can lead to a denial of service attack. Users should upgrade to 1.19.1 or later. Affected products include: Apache Tika.
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- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
In Apache Tika 1.19 (CVE-2018-11761), we added an entity expansion limit for XML parsing. However, Tika reuses SAXParsers and calls reset() after each parse, which, for Xerces2 parsers, as per the documentation, removes the user-specified SecurityManager and thus removes entity expansion limits after the first parse. Apache Tika versions from 0.1 to 1.19 are therefore still vulnerable to entity expansions which can lead to a denial of service attack. Users should upgrade to 1.19.1 or later.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
XML External Entity (XXE) attacks exploit XML parsers that process Document Type Definitions (DTDs) without proper restrictions.
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
From Apache Tika versions 1.7 to 1.17, clients could send carefully crafted headers to tika-server that could be used to
Critical XXE in Apache Tika tika-core (1.13-3.2.1), tika-pdf-module (2.0.0-3.2.1) and tika-parsers (1.13-1.28.5) modules
Critical XXE in Apache Tika (tika-parser-pdf-module) in Apache Tika 1.13 through and including 3.2.1 on all platforms al
An XXE issue in SAXBuilder in JDOM through 2.0.6 allows attackers to cause a denial of service via a crafted HTTP reques
Apache Tika before 1.14 allows Java code execution for serialized objects embedded in MATLAB files. Rated critical sever
A carefully crafted or corrupt zip file can cause an OOM in Apache Tika's RecursiveParserWrapper in versions 1.7-1.21. R
Apache Tika before 1.13 does not properly initialize the XML parser or choose handlers, which might allow remote attacke
A carefully crafted package/compressed file that, when unzipped/uncompressed yields the same file (a quine), causes a St
In Apache Tika 0.1 to 1.18, the XML parsers were not configured to limit entity expansion. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5
The /unpack endpoint in Apache Tika's server component (tika-server 4.0.0-alpha-1) fails to enforce the operator-configu
In Apache Tika 1.19 to 1.21, a carefully crafted 2003ml or 2006ml file could consume all available SAXParsers in the poo
A carefully crafted or corrupt sqlite file can cause an infinite loop in Apache Tika's SQLite3Parser in versions 1.8-1.1
GitHub PoC
Exploit-DB