CVE-2020-10683
Medium
Elevated severity or exploit probability.
CVSS base
9.8
CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS — probability of exploitation (30 days)
7.3%
94.1th percentile
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness / dates
CWE-611
Published 2020-05-01 · modified 2026-08-25
CVSS breakdown
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
| Attack Vector | N | Network |
| Attack Complexity | L | Low |
| Privileges Required | N | None |
| User Interaction | N | None |
| Scope | U | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | H | High |
| Integrity | H | High |
| Availability | H | High |
Timeline
- 2020-05-01 — Published (NVD)
- 2026-08-25 — Last modified (NVD)
Description
dom4j before 2.0.3 and 2.1.x before 2.1.3 allows external DTDs and External Entities by default, which might enable XXE attacks. However, there is popular external documentation from OWASP showing how to enable the safe, non-default behavior in any application that uses dom4j.
Affected
References
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-05/msg00061.html
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1694235
- https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/XML_External_Entity_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet.html
- https://github.com/dom4j/dom4j/commit/a8228522a99a02146106672a34c104adbda5c658
- https://github.com/dom4j/dom4j/commits/version-2.0.3
- https://github.com/dom4j/dom4j/issues/87
- https://github.com/dom4j/dom4j/releases/tag/version-2.1.3
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r51f3f9801058e47153c0ad9bc6209d57a592fc0e7aefd787760911b8%40%3Cdev.velocity.apache.org%3E
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r91c64cd51e68e97d524395474eaa25362d564572276b9917fcbf5c32%40%3Cdev.velocity.apache.org%3E
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/rb1b990d7920ae0d50da5109b73b92bab736d46c9788dd4b135cb1a51%40%3Cnotifications.freemarker.apache.org%3E
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20200518-0002/
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4575-1/
- https://www.oracle.com//security-alerts/cpujul2021.html
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuApr2021.html
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujan2021.html
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujan2022.html
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujul2020.html
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujul2022.html
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuoct2020.html
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuoct2021.html
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-05/msg00061.html
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1694235
- https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/XML_External_Entity_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet.html
- https://github.com/dom4j/dom4j/commit/a8228522a99a02146106672a34c104adbda5c658
- https://github.com/dom4j/dom4j/commits/version-2.0.3
- https://github.com/dom4j/dom4j/issues/87
- https://github.com/dom4j/dom4j/releases/tag/version-2.1.3
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r51f3f9801058e47153c0ad9bc6209d57a592fc0e7aefd787760911b8%40%3Cdev.velocity.apache.org%3E
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r91c64cd51e68e97d524395474eaa25362d564572276b9917fcbf5c32%40%3Cdev.velocity.apache.org%3E
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/rb1b990d7920ae0d50da5109b73b92bab736d46c9788dd4b135cb1a51%40%3Cnotifications.freemarker.apache.org%3E