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Actively exploited · Published Jul 1, 2024 · Assigned by GitHub_M

CVE-2024-36401Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in evaluating property name expressions in Geoserver

Critical 9.8 Exploited

In plain English

A critical-severity security flaw in geoserver from geoserver. Attackers are actively exploiting it in the wild (listed by CISA on July 15, 2024). The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 99.8% (higher than 99.9% of all known vulnerabilities). Ready-made attack tooling exists: Metasploit, Nuclei, public proof-of-concept code. Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)9.8Critical
Exploit odds (30 days)99.8%top 0.0% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildYesCISA KEV since Jul 15, 2024
Attack tooling3Metasploit, Nuclei, Public PoC

CISA guidance

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Federal agencies must remediate by Aug 5, 2024.

Official description

GeoServer is an open source server that allows users to share and edit geospatial data. Prior to versions 2.22.6, 2.23.6, 2.24.4, and 2.25.2, multiple OGC request parameters allow Remote Code Execution (RCE) by unauthenticated users through specially crafted input against a default GeoServer installation due to unsafely evaluating property names as XPath expressions. The GeoTools library API that GeoServer calls evaluates property/attribute names for feature types in a way that unsafely passes them to the commons-jxpath library which can execute arbitrary code when evaluating XPath expressions. This XPath evaluation is intended to be used only by complex feature types (i.e., Application Schema data stores) but is incorrectly being applied to simple feature types as well which makes this vulnerability apply to **ALL** GeoServer instances. No public PoC is provided but this vulnerability has been confirmed to be exploitable through WFS GetFeature, WFS GetPropertyValue, WMS GetMap, WMS GetFeatureInfo, WMS GetLegendGraphic and WPS Execute requests. This vulnerability can lead to executing arbitrary code. Versions 2.22.6, 2.23.6, 2.24.4, and 2.25.2 contain a patch for the issue. A workaround exists by removing the `gt-complex-x.y.jar` file from the GeoServer where `x.y` is the GeoTools version (e.g., `gt-complex-31.1.jar` if running GeoServer 2.25.1). This will remove the vulnerable code from GeoServer but may break some GeoServer functionality or prevent GeoServer from deploying if the gt-complex module is needed.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Mavenorg.geoserver.web:gs-web-app2.24.4GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
Mavenorg.geoserver.web:gs-web-app2.25.2GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
Mavenorg.geoserver.web:gs-web-app2.23.6GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
Mavenorg.geoserver.web:gs-web-app2.22.6GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
Mavenorg.geoserver:gs-wfs2.22.6GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
Mavenorg.geoserver:gs-wfs2.24.4GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
Mavenorg.geoserver:gs-wfs2.23.6GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
Mavenorg.geoserver:gs-wfs2.25.2GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
Mavenorg.geoserver:gs-wms2.22.6GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
Mavenorg.geoserver:gs-wms2.25.2GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
Mavenorg.geoserver:gs-wms2.23.6GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
Mavenorg.geoserver:gs-wms2.24.4GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
geoserver geoserver >= 2.23.0, < 2.23.6>= 2.24.0, < 2.24.4>= 2.25.0, < 2.25.2< 2.22.6

Weakness: CWE-95 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References