GeoServer is an open source server that allows users to share and edit geospatial data. An improper URI validation vulnerability exists that enables an unauthorized attacker to perform XML External Entities (XEE) attack, then send GET request to any HTTP server. By default, GeoServer use PreventLocalEntityResolver class from GeoTools to filter out malicious URIs in XML entities before resolving them. The URI must match the regex (?i)(jar:file|http|vfs)[^?#;]*.xsd. But the regex leaves a chance for attackers to request to any HTTP server or limited file. Attacker can abuse this to scan internal networks and gain information about them then exploit further. GeoServer 2.25.0 and greater default to the use of ENTITY_RESOLUTION_ALLOWLIST and does not require you to provide a system property.
The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
There are many different kinds of mistakes that introduce information exposures. The severity of the error can range widely, depending on the context in which the product operates, the type of sensitive information that is revealed, and the benefits it may provide to an attacker. Some kinds of sensitive information include:
Information might be sensitive to different parties, each of which may have their own expectations for whether the information should be protected. These parties include:
Information exposures can occur in different ways:
It is common practice to describe any loss of confidentiality as an “information exposure,” but this can lead to overuse of CWE-200 in CWE mapping. From the CWE perspective, loss of confidentiality is a technical impact that can arise from dozens of different weaknesses, such as insecure file permissions or out-of-bounds read. CWE-200 and its lower-level descendants are intended to cover the mistakes that occur in behaviors that explicitly manage, store, transfer, or cleanse sensitive information.