Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor in Apache SantuarioGHSA-j8wc-gxx9-82hx
HIGHGHSA-j8wc-gxx9-82hx is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Information Exposure vulnerability in org.apache.santuario:xmlsec. 2 public exploit or proof-of-concept references are indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for org.apache.santuario:xmlsec — 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-j8wc-gxx9-82hx.
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.santuario:xmlsec☕org.apache.santuario:xmlsecReal-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
All versions of Apache Santuario - XML Security for Java prior to 2.2.3 and 2.1.7 are vulnerable to an issue where the "secureValidation" property is not passed correctly when creating a KeyInfo from a KeyInfoReference element. This allows an attacker to abuse an XPath Transform to extract any local .xml files in a RetrievalMethod element.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.apache.santuario:xmlsec | ≥ 2.2.0&&< 2.2.3 | 2.2.3org.apache.santuario:xmlsec:2.2.3 |
| ☕Maven | org.apache.santuario:xmlsec | all versions | 2.1.7org.apache.santuario:xmlsec:2.1.7 |
Affected Products
cxfapachesantuario xml security for javaapachetomeeapachedebian linuxdebianagile product lifecycle managementoraclecommerce guided searchoracleResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.santuario:xmlsec, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.apache.santuario:xmlsec to 2.2.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-j8wc-gxx9-82hx is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Assume what was exposed is already known: rotate any credential, token or key that the affected component could return, restrict the endpoint to callers that genuinely need it, and strip sensitive fields from responses and error output at the boundary rather than relying on the client not to read them.
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.
Since OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) 4.7, the logging-elasticsearch6-container is shipping as a part of the OpenShift Logging product (openshift-logging/elasticsearch6-rhel8). The elasticsearch component delivered in OCP 4.6 is marked as `Out of support scope` because these versions are already under Maintenance…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| EAP 7.3.10 GA | xmlsec | RHSA-2021:5154 |
| Red Hat EAP-XP 2 via EAP 7.3.x base | xmlsec | RHSA-2022:0146 |
| Red Hat Fuse 7.11 | xmlsec | RHSA-2022:5532 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform | org.apache.santuario/xmlsec:2.1.7.redhat-00001 | RHSA-2021:4679 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.1 EUS for RHEL 7 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:1.5.5.016-1.redhat_00001.1.ep7.el7 | RHSA-2025:4226 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.3 for RHEL 6 | eap7-apache-cxf-0:3.3.12-1.redhat_00001.1.el6eap | RHSA-2021:5149 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.3 for RHEL 7 | eap7-apache-cxf-0:3.3.12-1.redhat_00001.1.el7eap | RHSA-2021:5150 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.3 for RHEL 8 | eap7-apache-cxf-0:3.3.12-1.redhat_00001.1.el8eap | RHSA-2021:5151 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-j8wc-gxx9-82hx in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.