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Vulnerability record · CVE-2025-54988 · published 20 August 2025

CVE-2025-54988: Apache tika xml external entity (xxe) vulnerability

Apache · Tika

Critical XXE in Apache Tika (tika-parser-pdf-module) in Apache Tika 1.13 through and including 3.2.1 on all platforms allows an attacker to carry out XML External Entity injection via a crafted XFA file inside of a PDF. An attacker may be able to read sensitive data or trigger malicious requests to internal resources or third-party servers. Note that the tika-parser-pdf-module is used as a dependency in several Tika packages including at least: tika-parsers-standard-modules, tika-parsers-standard-package, tika-app, tika-grpc and tika-server-standard. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.2.2, which fixes this issue.

8.4 CVSS 3.1 High EPSS 38% · top 1.5% CWE-611 · XML external entity (XXE)
8.4CVSS 3.1 base score
38%EPSS exploitation probability, 30 days
NoNot in CISA KEV
1Affected product versions listed by NVD
4References
17 Jun 2026Last modified by NVD

Description

Critical XXE in Apache Tika (tika-parser-pdf-module) in Apache Tika 1.13 through and including 3.2.1 on all platforms allows an attacker to carry out XML External Entity injection via a crafted XFA file inside of a PDF. An attacker may be able to read sensitive data or trigger malicious requests to internal resources or third-party servers. Note that the tika-parser-pdf-module is used as a dependency in several Tika packages including at least: tika-parsers-standard-modules, tika-parsers-standard-package, tika-app, tika-grpc and tika-server-standard. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.2.2, which fixes this issue.

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

1 vulnerable configurations from NVD's CPE data, grouped by vendor and product.

References

LinkTags
https://lists.apache.org/thread/8xn3rqy6kz5b3l1t83kcofkw0w4mmj1w Issue TrackingMailing ListVendor Advisory
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/08/20/2
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/08/20/3
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00030.html

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Related vulnerabilities

Same products first, then exploited flaws of the same weakness class.

9.8CVE-2025-66516Apache Tika XXE via crafted XFA file in PDFApache Tika's tika-core, tika-pdf-module and tika-parsers modules are vulnerable to XML External Entity injection when parsing a crafted XFA file emb…EPSS 88%analysed9.8CVE-2016-6809Apache nutch deserialization of untrusted data vulnerabilityApache Tika before 1.14 allows Java code execution for serialized objects embedded in MATLAB files. The issue exists because Tika invokes JMatIO to d…EPSS 8.0%8.8CVE-2019-10088Apache tika allocation without limits vulnerabilityA carefully crafted or corrupt zip file can cause an OOM in Apache Tika's RecursiveParserWrapper in versions 1.7-1.21. Users should upgrade to 1.22 o…EPSS 4.8%8.1CVE-2018-1335Apache Tika tika-server header command injectionApache Tika versions 1.7 through 1.17 allow clients to send crafted headers to tika-server that are injected into the server's command line, enabling…EPSS 94%analysed7.8CVE-2019-10094Apache tika allocation without limits vulnerabilityA carefully crafted package/compressed file that, when unzipped/uncompressed yields the same file (a quine), causes a StackOverflowError in Apache Ti…EPSS 2.5%7.8CVE-2016-4434Apache tika xml external entity (xxe) vulnerabilityApache Tika before 1.13 does not properly initialize the XML parser or choose handlers, which might allow remote attackers to conduct XML External En…EPSS 3.6%7.5CVE-2021-33813Jdom xml external entity (xxe) vulnerabilityAn XXE issue in SAXBuilder in JDOM through 2.0.6 allows attackers to cause a denial of service via a crafted HTTP request.EPSS 19%7.5CVE-2018-11796Apache tika xml external entity (xxe) vulnerabilityIn Apache Tika 1.19 (CVE-2018-11761), we added an entity expansion limit for XML parsing. However, Tika reuses SAXParsers and calls reset() after eac…EPSS 6.9%

Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database (record CVE-2025-54988), CISA KEV, FIRST EPSS (scores of 2026-09-26). This page is refreshed as NVD updates the record.