CVE-2021-41616 — ddlutils
CRITICALCVE-2021-41616 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in org.apache.ddlutils:ddlutils. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Deserialization of Untrusted Data in org.apache.ddlutils:ddlutils
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2021-41616.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-41616 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,386 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
org.apache.ddlutils:ddlutilsReal-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
Apache DB DdlUtils 1.0 included a BinaryObjectsHelper that was intended for use when migrating database data with a SQL data type of BINARY, VARBINARY, LONGVARBINARY, or BLOB between databases using the ddlutils features. The BinaryObjectsHelper class was insecure and used ObjectInputStream.readObject without validating that the input data was safe to deserialize. Please note that DdlUtils is no longer being actively developed. To address the insecurity of the BinaryObjectHelper class, the following changes to DdlUtils have been made: (1) BinaryObjectsHelper.java has been deleted from the DdlUtils source repository and the DdlUtils feature of propagating data of SQL binary types is therefore no longer present in DdlUtils; (2) The ddlutils-1.0 release has been removed from the Apache Release Distribution Infrastructure; (3) The DdlUtils web site has been updated to indicate that DdlUtils is now available only as source code, not as a packaged release.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.apache.ddlutils:ddlutils | all versions | No fix |
Affected Products
ddlutilsapacheDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.ddlutils:ddlutils, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Remediation status
No patched version of org.apache.ddlutils:ddlutils has shipped for CVE-2021-41616 yet. Where your build allows, override or pin the dependency away from the vulnerable range, and apply any maintainer-recommended mitigation.
Mitigate without a patch
Do not deserialise data from untrusted sources: where the format allows it, restrict deserialisation to an explicit allowlist of expected types, and prefer a data-only format (JSON, Protobuf) over one that can reconstruct arbitrary objects until you can upgrade.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-41616 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.