CVE-2019-9212 — hessian
CRITICALCVE-2019-9212 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) CWE-184 vulnerability in com.alipay.sofa:hessian. A fix is available for com.alipay.sofa:hessian — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Incomplete List of Disallowed Inputs in SOFA-Hessian
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2019-9212 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,238 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
com.alipay.sofa:hessian☕com.alipay.sofa:hessianReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
SOFA-Hessian through 4.0.2 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via a crafted serialized Hessian object because blacklisting of com.caucho.naming.QName and com.sun.org.apache.xpath.internal.objects.XString is mishandled, related to Resin Gadget. NOTE: The vendor doesn’t consider this issue a vulnerability because the blacklist is being misused. SOFA Hessian supports custom blacklist and a disclaimer was posted encouraging users to update the blacklist or to use the whitelist feature for their specific needs since the blacklist is not being actively updated
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | com.alipay.sofa:hessian | ≥ 4.0.0&&< 4.0.2 | 4.0.2com.alipay.sofa:hessian:4.0.2 |
| ☕Maven | com.alipay.sofa:hessian | all versions | 3.3.6com.alipay.sofa:hessian:3.3.6 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for com.alipay.sofa:hessian, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update com.alipay.sofa:hessian to 4.0.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2019-9212 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2019-9212 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2019-9212. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-9212 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2019-9212 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.