Denial of Service (DoS) Affecting org.apache.cxf:cxf-core package, versions [3.3.0,3.3.4)[3.2.0,3.2.11)


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

CVSS assessment made by Snyk's Security Team. Learn more

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
1.64% (89th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-JAVA-ORGAPACHECXF-480439
  • published6 Nov 2019
  • disclosed6 Nov 2019
  • creditUnknown

Introduced: 6 Nov 2019

CVE-2019-12406  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-189  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade org.apache.cxf:cxf-core to version 3.3.4, 3.2.11 or higher.

Overview

org.apache.cxf:cxf-core is an an open source services framework. CXF helps you build and develop services using frontend programming APIs, like JAX-WS and JAX-RS.

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS). Apache CXF does not restrict the number of message attachments present in a given message. This leaves open the possibility of a denial of service type attack, where a malicious user crafts a message containing a very large number of message attachments.

Details

Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its intended and legitimate users.

Unlike other vulnerabilities, DoS attacks usually do not aim at breaching security. Rather, they are focused on making websites and services unavailable to genuine users resulting in downtime.

One popular Denial of Service vulnerability is DDoS (a Distributed Denial of Service), an attack that attempts to clog network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines.

When it comes to open source libraries, DoS vulnerabilities allow attackers to trigger such a crash or crippling of the service by using a flaw either in the application code or from the use of open source libraries.

Two common types of DoS vulnerabilities:

  • High CPU/Memory Consumption- An attacker sending crafted requests that could cause the system to take a disproportionate amount of time to process. For example, commons-fileupload:commons-fileupload.

  • Crash - An attacker sending crafted requests that could cause the system to crash. For Example, npm ws package

CVSS Scores

version 3.1