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CRITICAL severity

CVE-2023-37895 — jackrabbit-webapp

CRITICAL

CVE-2023-37895 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-webapp. A fix is available for org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-webapp — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Apache Jackrabbit RMI access can lead to RCE

Also known asGHSA-q8cm-3v62-jj79
Published
Updated
Affected
6 pkgs
Patched
6 / 6
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Nov 1, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

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-2023-37895.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
3.2%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs88th percentile — riskier than 88% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.45%4.37%8.29%12.2%9.9%3.2%May 26Aug 26Nov 26

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

6 pkgs affected
☕org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-webapp☕org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-webapp☕org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone☕org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone☕org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone-components☕org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone-components

Real-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

Java object deserialization issue in Jackrabbit webapp/standalone on all platforms allows attacker to remotely execute code via RMIVersions up to (including) 2.20.10 (stable branch) and 2.21.17 (unstable branch) use the component "commons-beanutils", which contains a class that can be used for remote code execution over RMI.

Users are advised to immediately update to versions 2.20.11 or 2.21.18. Note that earlier stable branches (1.0.x .. 2.18.x) have been EOLd already and do not receive updates anymore.

In general, RMI support can expose vulnerabilities by the mere presence of an exploitable class on the classpath. Even if Jackrabbit itself does not contain any code known to be exploitable anymore, adding other components to your server can expose the same type of problem. We therefore recommend to disable RMI access altogether (see further below), and will discuss deprecating RMI support in future Jackrabbit releases.

How to check whether RMI support is enabledRMI support can be over an RMI-specific TCP port, and over an HTTP binding. Both are by default enabled in Jackrabbit webapp/standalone.

The native RMI protocol by default uses port 1099. To check whether it is enabled, tools like "netstat" can be used to check.

RMI-over-HTTP in Jackrabbit by default uses the path "/rmi". So when running standalone on port 8080, check whether an HTTP GET request on localhost:8080/rmi returns 404 (not enabled) or 200 (enabled). Note that the HTTP path may be different when the webapp is deployed in a container as non-root context, in which case the prefix is under the user's control.

Turning off RMIFind web.xml (either in JAR/WAR file or in unpacked web application folder), and remove the declaration and the mapping definition for the RemoteBindingServlet:

        <servlet>             <servlet-name>RMI</servlet-name>             <servlet-class>org.apache.jackrabbit.servlet.remote.RemoteBindingServlet</servlet-class>         </servlet>

        <servlet-mapping>             <servlet-name>RMI</servlet-name>             <url-pattern>/rmi</url-pattern>         </servlet-mapping>

Find the bootstrap.properties file (in $REPOSITORY_HOME), and set

        rmi.enabled=false

    and also remove

        rmi.host         rmi.port         rmi.url-pattern

 If there is no file named bootstrap.properties in $REPOSITORY_HOME, it is located somewhere in the classpath. In this case, place a copy in $REPOSITORY_HOME and modify it as explained.

Affected Packages

6 total 6 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
☕Mavenorg.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-webapp≥ 2.21.0&&< 2.21.182.21.18org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-webapp:2.21.18
☕Mavenorg.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-webapp≥ 1.0.0&&< 2.20.112.20.11org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-webapp:2.20.11
☕Mavenorg.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone≥ 2.21.0&&< 2.21.182.21.18org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone:2.21.18
☕Mavenorg.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone≥ 1.0.0&&< 2.20.112.20.11org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone:2.20.11
☕Mavenorg.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone-components≥ 2.21.0&&< 2.21.182.21.18org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone-components:2.21.18
☕Mavenorg.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone-components≥ 1.0.0&&< 2.20.112.20.11org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-standalone-components:2.20.11

Affected Products

1 product · 2 configurations
Application
jackrabbitapache
≥ 2.21.0 && < 2.21.18
range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency
  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-webapp, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update org.apache.jackrabbit:jackrabbit-webapp to 2.21.18 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-37895 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    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

Java object deserialization issue in Jackrabbit webapp/standalone on all platforms allows attacker to remotely execute code via RMIVersions up to (including) 2.20.10 (stable branch) and 2.21.17 (unstable branch) use the component "commons-beanutils", which contains a class that can be used for remote code execution over RMI. Users are advised to immediately update to versions 2.20.11 or 2.21.18. Note that earlier stable branches (1.0.x .. 2.18.x) have been EOLd already and do not receive updates anymore. In general, RMI support can expose vulnerabilities by the mere presence of an exploitabl
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2023-37895: jackrabbit-webapp RCE — Fixed in 2.21.18