Gradle
CVE-2023-42445
MEDIUM
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 5.3 (MEDIUM). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, high complexity, no privileges required, user interaction 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
Gradle is a build tool with a focus on build automation and support for multi-language development. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required. 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.
Affects your stack
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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. Gradle is a build tool with a focus on build automation and support for multi-language development. In some cases, when Gradle parses XML files, resolving XML external entities is not disabled. Combined with an Out Of Band XXE attack (OOB-XXE), just parsing XML can lead to exfiltration of local text files to a remote server. Gradle parses XML files for several purposes. Most of the time, Gradle parses XML files it generated or were already present locally. Only Ivy XML descriptors and Maven POM files can be fetched from remote repositories and parsed by Gradle. In Gradle 7.6.3 and 8.4, resolving XML external entities has been disabled for all use cases to protect against this vulnerability. Gradle will now refuse to parse XML files that have XML external entities. Affected products include: Gradle.
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- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
Gradle is a build tool with a focus on build automation and support for multi-language development. In some cases, when Gradle parses XML files, resolving XML external entities is not disabled. Combined with an Out Of Band XXE attack (OOB-XXE), just parsing XML can lead to exfiltration of local text files to a remote server. Gradle parses XML files for several purposes. Most of the time, Gradle parses XML files it generated or were already present locally. Only Ivy XML descriptors and Maven POM files can be fetched from remote repositories and parsed by Gradle. In Gradle 7.6.3 and 8.4, resolving XML external entities has been disabled for all use cases to protect against this vulnerability. Gradle will now refuse to parse XML files that have XML external entities.
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
ObjectSocketWrapper.java in Gradle 2.12 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted serialized objec
The HTTP client in Gradle before 5.6 sends authentication credentials originally destined for the configured host. Rated
Gradle is a build tool with a focus on build automation. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely
In Gradle before version 7.0, on Unix-like systems, the system temporary directory can be created with open permissions
In Gradle from version 5.1 and before version 7.0 there is a vulnerability which can lead to information disclosure and/
In Gradle Enterprise before 2023.1, a remote attacker may be able to gain access to a new installation (in certain insta
The PGP signing plugin in Gradle before 6.0 relies on the SHA-1 algorithm, which might allow an attacker to replace an a
Gradle is a build tool with a focus on build automation and support for multi-language development. Rated critical sever
Gradle Enterprise before 2022.1 allows remote code execution if the installation process did not specify an initial conf
In Gradle Enterprise before 2021.3 (and Enterprise Build Cache Node before 10.0), there is potential cache poisoning and
In Gradle Enterprise before 2018.5.2, Build Cache Nodes would reflect the configured password back when viewing the HTML
In Gradle Enterprise before 2018.5.3, Build Cache Nodes did not store the credentials at rest in an encrypted format. Ra
Exploit-DB