GHSA-7w85-pp86-p4pq is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) Information Exposure vulnerability in org.dspace:dspace-xmlui. A fix is available for org.dspace:dspace-xmlui — see the affected versions and patch details below.
XMLUI's metadata of withdrawn Items is exposed to anonymous users
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-7w85-pp86-p4pq.
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
GHSA-7w85-pp86-p4pq 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
org.dspace:dspace-xmluiReal-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
Metadata on a withdrawn Item is exposed via the XMLUI "mets.xml" object, as long as you know the handle/URL of the withdrawn Item. This vulnerability only impacts the XMLUI.
However, this vulnerability is very low severity as Item metadata does not tend to contain highly secure or sensitive information.
This vulnerability does NOT impact the JSPUI or 7.x.
Patches
Because of the low severity of this security issue, it requires updating to 6.4 to resolve. No patch is available for 5.x or below.
DSpace 6.x:
- Fixed in 6.4 via #2451
- 6.x patch file: https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/commit/574e25496a40173653ae7d0a49a19ed8e3458606.patch (may be applied manually if an immediate upgrade to 6.4 or above is not possible)
Apply the patch to your DSpace
If at all possible, we recommend upgrading your DSpace site based on the upgrade instructions. However, if you are unable to do so, you can manually apply the above patches as follows:
- Download the appropriate patch file to the machine where DSpace is running
- From the
[dspace-src]folder, apply the patch, e.g.git apply [name-of-file].patch - Now, update your DSpace site (based loosely on the Upgrade instructions). This generally involves three steps:
- Rebuild DSpace, e.g.
mvn -U clean package(This will recompile all DSpace code) - Redeploy DSpace, e.g.
ant update(This will copy all updated WARs / configs to your installation directory). Depending on your setup you also may need to copy the updated WARs over to your Tomcat webapps folder. - Restart Tomcat
- Rebuild DSpace, e.g.
Workaround
If there are any withdrawn items which are known to have highly secure information in their metadata, they can be permanently deleted. This will ensure their secure metadata is inaccessible & removed from the system entirely.
References
Discovered & reported by David Cavrenne of Atmire
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Email us at [email protected]
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.dspace:dspace-xmlui | ≥ 4.0&&< 6.4 | 6.4org.dspace:dspace-xmlui:6.4 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.dspace:dspace-xmlui, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.dspace:dspace-xmlui to 6.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-7w85-pp86-p4pq 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 GHSA-7w85-pp86-p4pq can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-7w85-pp86-p4pq. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-7w85-pp86-p4pq in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-7w85-pp86-p4pq across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.