Advisory details:
vulnrichment / CVE-2025-54988
| Advisory ID | vulnrichment/CVE-2025-54988 |
| Aliases | |
| Summary | 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. |
| Status | Published |
| Exploitability | 0.5 |
| Weighted Severity | 0.0 |
| Risk | |
| Affected and Fixed Packages | Package Details |
| Introduced and Fixed Package Commit Patches | Package Commit Patches Details |
| System | Score | Found at |
|---|---|---|
| cvssv3.1 | 8.4 | |
| cvssv3.1 | 9.8 | |
| ssvc | Track* |
| Reference id | Reference type | URL |
|---|---|---|
| https://lists.apache.org/thread/8xn3rqy6kz5b3l1t83kcofkw0w4mmj1w |
| Data source | Metasploit |
|---|---|
| Description | This module validates CVE-2025-54988 / CVE-2025-66516 through an Elasticsearch ingest pipeline using the attachment processor. It creates a temporary pipeline, submits an in-memory PDF containing crafted XFA data to the _simulate API, extracts a caller-selected local file, and removes the pipeline in an ensure block. The target must permit pipeline creation, simulation, and deletion. The default proof file is /etc/hostname. No index or document is created. |
| Note | Stability: - crash-safe Reliability: - repeatable-session SideEffects: - ioc-in-logs - config-changes |
| Ransomware campaign use | Unknown |
| Source publication date | Aug. 20, 2025 |
| Source URL | https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/tree/master/modules/auxiliary/scanner/http/elasticsearch_tika_xfa_xxe.rb |
No EPSS data available for this advisory.
| Patch URL | |
|---|---|
| There are no known patches. | |
| Attack Vector (AV) | Attack Complexity (AC) | Privileges Required (PR) | User Interaction (UI) | Scope (S) | Confidentiality Impact (C) | Integrity Impact (I) | Availability Impact (A) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
network adjacent_network local physical |
low high |
none low high |
none required |
unchanged changed |
high low none |
high low none |
high low none |
| Attack Vector (AV) | Attack Complexity (AC) | Privileges Required (PR) | User Interaction (UI) | Scope (S) | Confidentiality Impact (C) | Integrity Impact (I) | Availability Impact (A) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
network adjacent_network local physical |
low high |
none low high |
none required |
unchanged changed |
high low none |
high low none |
high low none |
Vector: SSVCv2/E:P/A:N/T:T/P:M/B:A/M:M/D:R/2026-01-22T04:55:48Z/
Decision: Track*
Source URL: https://github.com/cisagov/vulnrichment/blob/develop/2025/54xxx/CVE-2025-54988.json
Source Advisory: vulnrichment/CVE-2025-54988
[{'Exploitation': 'poc'},
{'Automatable': 'no'},
{'Technical Impact': 'total'},
{'Mission Prevalence': 'minimal'},
{'Public Well-being Impact': 'material'},
{'Mission & Well-being': 'medium'}]