CVE-2026-42404 — neethi
MEDIUMCVE-2026-42404 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in org.apache.neethi:neethi. A fix is available for org.apache.neethi:neethi — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Apache Neethi: Unrestricted HTTP Redirect Following in Policy References
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-2026-42404.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
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
org.apache.neethi:neethiReal-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 Neethi does not impose any restrictions on URIs when manually fetching remote policy references through the PolicyReference API. When an application explicitly calls the API to retrieve a policy from a remote URI, an outbound request is made for arbitrary protocols and internal IP adddresses. From 3.2.2, only http or https URIs are allowed, and link-local/multicast/any-local addresses are forbidden.
Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.2.2, which fixes this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.apache.neethi:neethi | all versions | 3.2.2org.apache.neethi:neethi:3.2.2 |
Affected Products
neethiapacheDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.neethi:neethi, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.apache.neethi:neethi to 3.2.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-42404 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Restrict outbound requests from the affected component to an allowlist of hosts, block access to link-local and internal address ranges at the network layer, and require authentication on internal services so a forged request cannot reach them unauthenticated.
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.
To mitigate this issue, restrict outbound network access for applications that utilize Apache Neethi's PolicyReference API, especially if they process untrusted input that could influence the URI used for fetching remote policies. Implement firewall rules or network policies to limit the protocols and IP addresses to which the application can connect. This may impact application functionality if legitimate remote policy fetching is required.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2026-42404 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Build of Apache Camel 4.14 for Quarkus 3.27 | neethi | RHSA-2026:19835 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-42404 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.