CVE-2024-23636 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in com.alipay.sofa:rpc-sofa-boot-starter. A fix is available for com.alipay.sofa:rpc-sofa-boot-starter — see the affected versions and patch details below.
SOFARPC Remote Command Execution(RCE) Vulnerbility
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-2024-23636.
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-2024-23636 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 377,166 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:rpc-sofa-boot-starterReal-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
SOFARPC is a Java RPC framework. SOFARPC defaults to using the SOFA Hessian protocol to deserialize received data, while the SOFA Hessian protocol uses a blacklist mechanism to restrict deserialization of potentially dangerous classes for security protection. But, prior to version 5.12.0, there is a gadget chain that can bypass the SOFA Hessian blacklist protection mechanism, and this gadget chain only relies on JDK and does not rely on any third-party components. Version 5.12.0 fixed this issue by adding a blacklist. SOFARPC also provides a way to add additional blacklists. Users can add a class like -Drpc_serialize_blacklist_override=org.apache.xpath. to avoid this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | com.alipay.sofa:rpc-sofa-boot-starter | all versions | 5.12.0com.alipay.sofa:rpc-sofa-boot-starter:5.12.0 |
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:rpc-sofa-boot-starter, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update com.alipay.sofa:rpc-sofa-boot-starter to 5.12.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-23636 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-2024-23636 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-23636. 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-2024-23636 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-23636 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.