Insecure Deserialization in Apache Commons BeanutilsGHSA-6phf-73q6-gh87
HIGHGHSA-6phf-73q6-gh87 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.3) Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in commons-beanutils:commons-beanutils. EPSS puts its 30-day exploitation probability at 29.1% (98th percentile). A fix is available for commons-beanutils:commons-beanutils — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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 GHSA-6phf-73q6-gh87.
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
commons-beanutils:commons-beanutilsReal-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
In Apache Commons Beanutils 1.9.2, a special BeanIntrospector class was added which allows suppressing the ability for an attacker to access the classloader via the class property available on all Java objects. We, however were not using this by default characteristic of the PropertyUtilsBean.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | commons-beanutils:commons-beanutils | all versions | 1.9.4commons-beanutils:commons-beanutils:1.9.4 |
Affected Products
commons beanutilsapachenifiapachedebian linuxdebianfedorafedoraprojectleapopensuseagile product lifecycle managementoracleDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for commons-beanutils:commons-beanutils, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update commons-beanutils:commons-beanutils to 1.9.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-6phf-73q6-gh87 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
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.
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.
There is no currently known mitigation for this flaw.Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-6phf-73q6-gh87 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| EAP-CD 19 Tech Preview | commons-beanutils | RHSA-2020:2333 |
| Red Hat Data Grid 7.3.6 | commons-beanutils | RHSA-2020:2321 |
| Red Hat Decision Manager 7 | commons-beanutils | RHSA-2020:0899 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | apache-commons-beanutils-0:1.8.3-15.el7_7 | RHSA-2020:0194 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | javapackages-tools:201801-8100020250616113255.88f2bc72 | RHSA-2025:9318 |
| Red Hat Fuse 6.3 | commons-beanutils | RHSA-2020:3587 |
| Red Hat Fuse 7.6.0 on EAP async | commons-beanutils | RHSA-2020:2619 |
| Red Hat Fuse 7.7.0 | see advisory | RHSA-2020:3192 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-6phf-73q6-gh87 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.