CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-42445

Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference

Published: Oct 06, 2023 | Modified: Apr 11, 2025
CVSS 3.x
5.3
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
5.3 MODERATE
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

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.

Weakness

The product processes an XML document that can contain XML entities with URIs that resolve to documents outside of the intended sphere of control, causing the product to embed incorrect documents into its output.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Gradle Gradle * 7.6.3 (excluding)
Gradle Gradle 8.0.0 (including) 8.4.0 (excluding)
Red Hat AMQ Streams 2.6.0 RedHat gradle *
Gradle Ubuntu bionic *
Gradle Ubuntu focal *
Gradle Ubuntu lunar *
Gradle Ubuntu mantic *
Gradle Ubuntu oracular *
Gradle Ubuntu trusty *
Gradle Ubuntu xenial *

Potential Mitigations

References