Phpspreadsheet
CVE-2019-12331
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 8.8 (HIGH). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, user interaction required. Public proof-of-concept exploit code is available. |
| 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
PHPOffice PhpSpreadsheet before 1.8.0 has an XXE issue. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and 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 2 packages in composer
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. PHPOffice PhpSpreadsheet before 1.8.0 has an XXE issue. The XmlScanner decodes the sheet1.xml from an .xlsx to utf-8 if something else than UTF-8 is declared in the header. This was a security measurement to prevent CVE-2018-19277 but the fix is not sufficient. By double-encoding the the xml payload to utf-7 it is possible to bypass the check for the string ‚<!ENTITY‘ and thus allowing for an xml external entity processing (XXE) attack. Affected products include: Phpoffice Phpspreadsheet. Version information: before 1.8.0.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
PHPOffice PhpSpreadsheet before 1.8.0 has an XXE issue. The XmlScanner decodes the sheet1.xml from an .xlsx to utf-8 if something else than UTF-8 is declared in the header. This was a security measurement to prevent CVE-2018-19277 but the fix is not sufficient. By double-encoding the the xml payload to utf-7 it is possible to bypass the check for the string ‚<!ENTITY‘ and thus allowing for an xml external entity processing (XXE) attack.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
GitHub
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.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
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Exploit-DB