CVE-2020-25689 — wildfly-dist
MEDIUMCVE-2020-25689 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-401 vulnerability in org.wildfly:wildfly-dist. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for org.wildfly:wildfly-dist — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in WildFly
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
org.wildfly:wildfly-distReal-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
A memory leak flaw was found in WildFly in all versions up to 21.0.0.Final, where host-controller tries to reconnect in a loop, generating new connections which are not properly closed while not able to connect to domain-controller. This flaw allows an attacker to cause an Out of memory (OOM) issue, leading to a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.wildfly:wildfly-dist | all versions | 21.0.1org.wildfly:wildfly-dist:21.0.1 |
Affected Products
active iq unified managernetapponcommand insightnetappservice level managernetappfuseredhatjboss data gridredhatjboss enterprise application platformredhatResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.wildfly:wildfly-dist, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.wildfly:wildfly-dist to 21.0.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-25689 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Fuse 7.11 | wildfly-core | RHSA-2022:5532 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7 | wildfly-core | RHSA-2021:0250 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.3 for RHEL 6 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:2.9.0-7.redhat_00017.1.el6eap | RHSA-2021:0246 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.3 for RHEL 7 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:2.9.0-7.redhat_00017.1.el7eap | RHSA-2021:0247 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.3 for RHEL 8 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:2.9.0-7.redhat_00017.1.el8eap | RHSA-2021:0248 |
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7.4.5 | wildfly-core | RHSA-2021:0327 |
| Text-Only RHOAR | see advisory | RHSA-2021:0295 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-25689 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.