CVE-2015-0254

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Important Important Impact What does this mean?
7.6 CVSS v3 Base Score
6.8 CVSS v2 Base Score

Description

It was found that the Java Standard Tag Library (JSTL) allowed the processing of untrusted XML documents to utilize external entity references, which could access resources on the host system and, potentially, allowing arbitrary code execution.

Statement

Users of EAP 6.x and 7.0 should upgrade to at least 6.4.9 and pass the following system property on startup to prevent XXE attacks in JSTL: org.apache.taglibs.standard.xml.accessExternalEntity=false

For more details please see refer to this KCS solution: https://access.redhat.com/solutions/1584363

Mitigation

Users should upgrade to Apache Standard Taglibs 1.2.3 or later.

This version uses JAXP’s FEATURE_SECURE_PROCESSING to restrict XML processing. Depending on the Java runtime version in use, additional configuration may be required:

Java8:
External entity access is automatically disabled if a SecurityManager is active.

Java7:
JAXP properties may need to be used to disable external access. See This content is not included.http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/jaxp/properties/properties.html

Java6 and earlier:
A new system property org.apache.taglibs.standard.xml.accessExternalEntity may be used to specify the protocols that can be used to access external entities. This defaults to "all" if no SecurityManager is present and to "" (thereby disabling access) if a SecurityManager is detected.

Additional Information

External References

Content from www.cve.org is not included.https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2015-0254

Content from nvd.nist.gov is not included.https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-0254

Affected Packages and Issued Red Hat Security Errata

Products / Services Components State Errata
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 jakarta-taglibs-standard Affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 jakarta-taglibs-standard Fixed RHSA-2015:1695
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 jetty Affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 jakarta-taglibs-standard Fixed RHSA-2015:1695
Red Hat JBoss BRMS 5 web Will not fix
Red Hat JBoss EAP 7 Fixed This content is not included.RHSA-2016:1841
Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 web Affected
Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.4 Fixed RHSA-2016:0125
Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.4 for RHEL 5 apache-cxf Fixed RHSA-2016:0121
Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.4 for RHEL 5 hibernate4-eap6 Fixed RHSA-2016:0121
Unless explicitly stated as not affected, all previous versions of packages in any minor update stream of a product listed here should be assumed vulnerable, although may not have been subject to full analysis.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authorities (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications ).

CVSS v3
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown Red Hat NVD
CVSS v3 Base Score 7.6
Attack Vector Network
Attack Complexity Low
Privileges Required None
User Interaction Required
Scope Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact Low
Integrity Impact High
Availability Impact Low

CVSS v3 Vector

Red Hat CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:L

CVSS v2
CVSS v2 Score Breakdown Red Hat NVD
CVSS v2 Base Score 6.8 7.5
Attack Vector Network Network
Access Complexity Medium Low
Authentication None None
Confidentiality Impact Partial Partial
Integrity Impact Partial Partial
Availability Impact Partial Partial

CVSS v2 Vector

Red Hat AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

NVD AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank Apache Software Foundation and David Jorm (IIX) for reporting this issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

 For open source software shipped by multiple vendors, the CVSS base scores may vary for each vendor's version depending on the version they ship, how they ship it, the platform, and even how the software is compiled. This makes scoring of vulnerabilities difficult for third-party vulnerability databases such as NVD that only provide a single CVSS base score for each vulnerability. Red Hat scores reflect how a vulnerability affects our products specifically.

For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/762393.

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?
  • "Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.
  • "Affected" means that our Analysis Team has determined that this product is affected by this vulnerability and might release a fix to address this in the near future.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

 A "will not fix" status means that a fix for an affected product version is not planned or not possible due to complexity, which may create additional risk.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

 A deferred status means that a fix for an affected product version is not guaranteed due to higher-priority development work.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
  • Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on their complexity or limited lifecycle support. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.

What is a mitigation?

 A mitigation is an action that can be taken to reduce the impact of a security vulnerability, without deploying any fixes.

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

 The listed products were found to include one or more of the components that this vulnerability affects. These products underwent a thorough evaluation to determine their affectedness by this vulnerability. Note that layered products (such as container-based offerings) that consume affected components from any of the products listed in this table may be affected and are not represented.

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

 In order to maintain code stability and compatibility, Red Hat usually does not rebase packages to entirely new versions. Instead, we backport fixes and new features to an older version of the package we distribute. This can result in some security scanners that only consider the package version to report the package as vulnerable. To avoid this, we suggest that you use an approved vulnerability scanner from our This content is not included.Red Hat Vulnerability Scanner Certification program.