GHSA-qw3f-w4pf-jh5f is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) vulnerability in org.apache.tika:tika-core. A fix is available for org.apache.tika:tika-core — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Regular expression denial of service in apache tika
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-qw3f-w4pf-jh5f 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 378,567 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.tika:tika-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
We failed to apply the fix for CVE-2022-30126 to the 1.x branch in the 1.28.2 release. In Apache Tika, a regular expression in the StandardsText class, used by the StandardsExtractingContentHandler could lead to a denial of service caused by backtracking on a specially crafted file. This only affects users who are running the StandardsExtractingContentHandler, which is a non-standard handler. This is fixed in 1.28.3.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.apache.tika:tika-core | ≥ 1.17&&< 1.28.3 | 1.28.3org.apache.tika:tika-core:1.28.3 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.tika:tika-core, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.apache.tika:tika-core to 1.28.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-qw3f-w4pf-jh5f 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-qw3f-w4pf-jh5f can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-qw3f-w4pf-jh5f. 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.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| RHINT Camel-K 1.8.1 | tika-core | RHSA-2022:7257 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-qw3f-w4pf-jh5f in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-qw3f-w4pf-jh5f across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.