CVE-2020-9489 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) CWE-835 vulnerability in org.apache.tika:tika. A fix is available for org.apache.tika:tika — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime in Apache Tika
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-2020-9489 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 379,145 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
org.apache.tika:tikaReal-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 carefully crafted or corrupt file may trigger a System.exit in Tika's OneNote Parser. Crafted or corrupted files can also cause out of memory errors and/or infinite loops in Tika's ICNSParser, MP3Parser, MP4Parser, SAS7BDATParser, OneNoteParser and ImageParser. Apache Tika users should upgrade to 1.24.1 or later. The vulnerabilities in the MP4Parser were partially fixed by upgrading the com.googlecode:isoparser:1.1.22 dependency to org.tallison:isoparser:1.9.41.2. For unrelated security reasons, we upgraded org.apache.cxf to 3.3.6 as part of the 1.24.1 release.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.apache.tika:tika | all versions | 1.24.1org.apache.tika:tika:1.24.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.tika:tika, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.apache.tika:tika to 1.24.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-9489 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.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2020-9489 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2020-9489. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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 7.8.0 | camel-tika | RHSA-2020:5568 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-9489 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2020-9489 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.