CVE-2024-47072 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-121 vulnerability in com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream. A fix is available for com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream — see the affected versions and patch details below.
XStream is vulnerable to a Denial of Service attack due to stack overflow from a manipulated binary input stream
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.
- 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-2024-47072.
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-2024-47072 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 377,636 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.thoughtworks.xstream:xstreamReal-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
Impact
The vulnerability may allow a remote attacker to terminate the application with a stack overflow error resulting in a denial of service only by manipulating the processed input stream when XStream is configured to use the BinaryStreamDriver.
Patches
XStream 1.4.21 detects the manipulation in the binary input stream causing the the stack overflow and raises an InputManipulationException instead.
Workarounds
The only solution is to catch the StackOverflowError in the client code calling XStream if XStream is configured to use the BinaryStreamDriver.
References
See full information about the nature of the vulnerability and the steps to reproduce it in XStream's documentation for CVE-2024-47072.
Credits
Alexis Challande of Trail Of Bits found and reported the issue to XStream and provided the required information to reproduce it.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream | all versions | 1.4.21com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream:1.4.21 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream to 1.4.21 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-47072 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-2024-47072 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-47072. 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.
This vulnerability in XStream is considered an Important severity rather than Moderate because it exposes applications to a denial of service (DoS) attack with relative ease. By exploiting the flaw in the `BinaryStreamDriver`, an attacker can manipulate the binary input stream to trigger a stack overflow, which…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| OCP-Tools-4.12-RHEL-8 | jenkins-0:2.479.3.1740464431-3.el8 | RHSA-2025:2223 |
| OCP-Tools-4.13-RHEL-8 | jenkins-0:2.479.3.1740464433-3.el8 | RHSA-2025:2222 |
| OCP-Tools-4.14-RHEL-8 | jenkins-0:2.479.3.1740109575-3.el8 | RHSA-2025:2221 |
| OCP-Tools-4.15-RHEL-8 | jenkins-0:2.479.3.1740051993-3.el8 | RHSA-2025:2220 |
| OCP-Tools-4.16-RHEL-9 | jenkins-0:2.479.3.1739896390-3.el9 | RHSA-2025:2219 |
| OCP-Tools-4.17-RHEL-9 | jenkins-0:2.479.3.1739859586-3.el9 | RHSA-2025:2218 |
| Red Hat Build of Keycloak | see advisory | RHSA-2025:2545 |
| Red Hat build of Keycloak 26 | see advisory | RHSA-2025:8690 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-47072 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-47072 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.