CVE-2024-56337 — tomcat-catalina
CRITICALCVE-2024-56337 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) CWE-367 vulnerability in org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina. A fix is available for org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Apache Tomcat: RCE due to TOCTOU issue in JSP compilation - CVE-2024-50379 mitigation was incomplete
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-2024-56337.
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-2024-56337 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
org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina☕org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina☕org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-embed-core☕org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-core☕org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-core☕org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-coreReal-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
Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition vulnerability in Apache Tomcat.
This issue affects Apache Tomcat: from 11.0.0-M1 through 11.0.1, from 10.1.0-M1 through 10.1.33, from 9.0.0.M1 through 9.0.97. The following versions were EOL at the time the CVE was created but are known to be affected: 8.5.0 though 8.5.100. Other, older, EOL versions may also be affected.
The mitigation for CVE-2024-50379 was incomplete.
Users running Tomcat on a case insensitive file system with the default servlet write enabled (readonly initialisation parameter set to the non-default value of false) may need additional configuration to fully mitigate CVE-2024-50379 depending on which version of Java they are using with Tomcat:
- running on Java 8 or Java 11: the system property sun.io.useCanonCaches must be explicitly set to false (it defaults to true)
- running on Java 17: the system property sun.io.useCanonCaches, if set, must be set to false (it defaults to false)
- running on Java 21 onwards: no further configuration is required (the system property and the problematic cache have been removed)
Tomcat 11.0.3, 10.1.35 and 9.0.99 onwards will include checks that sun.io.useCanonCaches is set appropriately before allowing the default servlet to be write enabled on a case insensitive file system. Tomcat will also set sun.io.useCanonCaches to false by default where it can.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina | ≥ 11.0.0-M1&&< 11.0.2 | 11.0.2org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina:11.0.2 |
| ☕Maven | org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina | ≥ 10.1.0-M1&&< 10.1.34 | 10.1.34org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina:10.1.34 |
| ☕Maven | org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-embed-core | ≥ 9.0.0.M1&&< 9.0.98 | 9.0.98org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-embed-core:9.0.98 |
| ☕Maven | org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-core | ≥ 11.0.0-M1&&< 11.0.2 | 11.0.2org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-core:11.0.2 |
| ☕Maven | org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-core | ≥ 10.1.0-M1&&< 10.1.34 | 10.1.34org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-core:10.1.34 |
| ☕Maven | org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-core | ≥ 9.0.0.M1&&< 9.0.98 | 9.0.98org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-core:9.0.98 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina to 11.0.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-56337 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-2024-56337 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-56337. 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.
The vulnerability is marked as moderate rather than important due to the specific conditions required for exploitation. For the attack to succeed, the server must be running on a case-insensitive file system (e.g., Windows or macOS) and have the default servlet enabled with write permissions —a configuration that is…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | tomcat9-1:9.0.87-5.el10_0.1 | RHSA-2025:11332 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | tomcat-1:9.0.87-1.el8_10.4 | RHSA-2025:11333 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 Telecommunications Update Service | tomcat-1:9.0.87-1.el8_8.5 | RHSA-2025:11382 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | tomcat-1:9.0.87-3.el9_6.1 | RHSA-2025:11335 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 Update Services for SAP Solutions | tomcat-1:9.0.87-1.el9_2.4 | RHSA-2025:11381 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 Extended Update Support | tomcat-1:9.0.87-1.el9_4.4 | RHSA-2025:11334 |
| Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5 | tomcat | RHSA-2025:4522 |
| Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5.8 on RHEL 7 | jws5-tomcat-0:9.0.87-11.redhat_00010.1.el7jws | RHSA-2025:4521 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-56337 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-56337 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.