XML External Entity (XXE) Injection Affecting tika package, versions <1.22-1ubuntu0.1~esm2
Threat Intelligence
Snyk has a proof-of-concept or detailed explanation of how to exploit this vulnerability.
The probability is the direct output of the EPSS model, and conveys an overall sense of the threat of exploitation in the wild. The percentile measures the EPSS probability relative to all known EPSS scores. Note: This data is updated daily, relying on the latest available EPSS model version. Check out the EPSS documentation for more details.
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Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-UBUNTU2004-TIKA-12143502
- published21 May 2026
- disclosed20 Aug 2025
Introduced: 20 Aug 2025
CVE-2025-54988 (opens in a new tab)How to fix?
Upgrade Ubuntu:20.04 tika to version 1.22-1ubuntu0.1~esm2 or higher.
NVD Description
Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream tika package and not the tika package as distributed by Ubuntu.
See How to fix? for Ubuntu:20.04 relevant fixed versions and status.
Critical XXE in Apache Tika (tika-parser-pdf-module) in Apache Tika 1.13 through and including 3.2.1 on all platforms allows an attacker to carry out XML External Entity injection via a crafted XFA file inside of a PDF. An attacker may be able to read sensitive data or trigger malicious requests to internal resources or third-party servers. Note that the tika-parser-pdf-module is used as a dependency in several Tika packages including at least: tika-parsers-standard-modules, tika-parsers-standard-package, tika-app, tika-grpc and tika-server-standard.
Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.2.2, which fixes this issue.
References
- http://people.ubuntu.com/~ubuntu-security/cve/CVE-2025-54988
- https://lists.apache.org/thread/8xn3rqy6kz5b3l1t83kcofkw0w4mmj1w
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00030.html
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/08/20/2
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/08/20/3
- https://github.com/mgthuramoemyint/POC-CVE-2025-54988
- https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates/blob/main/http/cves/2025/CVE-2025-54988.yaml