Headline
GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv: Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in geoserver
Summary
Multiple OGC request parameters allow Remote Code Execution (RCE) by unauthenticated users through specially crafted input against a default GeoServer installation due to unsafely evaluating property names as XPath expressions.
Details
The GeoTools library API that GeoServer calls evaluates property/attribute names for feature types in a way that unsafely passes them to the commons-jxpath library which can execute arbitrary code when evaluating XPath expressions. This XPath evaluation is intended to be used only by complex feature types (i.e., Application Schema data stores) but is incorrectly being applied to simple feature types as well which makes this vulnerability apply to ALL GeoServer instances.
PoC
No public PoC is provided but this vulnerability has been confirmed to be exploitable through WFS GetFeature, WFS GetPropertyValue, WMS GetMap, WMS GetFeatureInfo, WMS GetLegendGraphic and WPS Execute requests.
Impact
This vulnerability can lead to executing arbitrary code.
Workaround
A workaround exists by removing the gt-complex-x.y.jar file from the GeoServer where x.y is the GeoTools version (e.g., gt-complex-31.1.jar if running GeoServer 2.25.1). This will remove the vulnerable code from GeoServer but may break some GeoServer functionality or prevent GeoServer from deploying if the gt-complex module is needed by an extension you are using:
Mitigation for geoserver.war deploy:
- Stop the application server
- Unzip
geoserver.warinto a directory - Locate the file
WEB-INF/lib/gt-complex-x.y.jarand remove - Zip the directory into a new
geoserver.war - Restart the application server
Mitigation for GeoServer binary:
- Stop Jetty
- Locate the file
webapps/geoserver/WEB-INF/lib/gt-complex-x.y.jarand remove - Restart Jetty
The following extensions and community modules are known to have a direct dependency on gt-complex jar and are not expected function properly without it. This is not comprehensive list and additional GeoServer functionality may be dependent on the availability of gt-complex jar:
- Extensions: Application Schema, Catalog Services for the Web, MongoDB Data Store
- Community Modules: Features-Templating, OGC API Modules, Smart Data Loader, SOLR Data Store
Patch available for prior releases:
- Patched
gt-app-schema,gt-complexandgt-xsd-corejars may be downloaded from the release page for GeoServer: 2.25.1, 2.24.3, 2.24.2, 2.23.2, 2.21.5, 2.20.7, 2.20.4, 2.19.2, 2.18.0. - To use follow the instructions above to locate
WEB-INF/libfolder - Replace
gt-app-schema,gt-complexandgt-xsd-corejars with those supplied by the patch
References
https://github.com/geotools/geotools/security/advisories/GHSA-w3pj-wh35-fq8w https://osgeo-org.atlassian.net/browse/GEOT-7587 https://github.com/geotools/geotools/pull/4797 https://github.com/Warxim/CVE-2022-41852?tab=readme-ov-file#workaround-for-cve-2022-41852
Summary
Multiple OGC request parameters allow Remote Code Execution (RCE) by unauthenticated users through specially crafted input against a default GeoServer installation due to unsafely evaluating property names as XPath expressions.
Details
The GeoTools library API that GeoServer calls evaluates property/attribute names for feature types in a way that unsafely passes them to the commons-jxpath library which can execute arbitrary code when evaluating XPath expressions. This XPath evaluation is intended to be used only by complex feature types (i.e., Application Schema data stores) but is incorrectly being applied to simple feature types as well which makes this vulnerability apply to ALL GeoServer instances.
PoC
No public PoC is provided but this vulnerability has been confirmed to be exploitable through WFS GetFeature, WFS GetPropertyValue, WMS GetMap, WMS GetFeatureInfo, WMS GetLegendGraphic and WPS Execute requests.
Impact
This vulnerability can lead to executing arbitrary code.
Workaround
A workaround exists by removing the gt-complex-x.y.jar file from the GeoServer where x.y is the GeoTools version (e.g., gt-complex-31.1.jar if running GeoServer 2.25.1). This will remove the vulnerable code from GeoServer but may break some GeoServer functionality or prevent GeoServer from deploying if the gt-complex module is needed by an extension you are using:
Mitigation for geoserver.war deploy:
- Stop the application server
- Unzip geoserver.war into a directory
- Locate the file WEB-INF/lib/gt-complex-x.y.jar and remove
- Zip the directory into a new geoserver.war
- Restart the application server
Mitigation for GeoServer binary:
- Stop Jetty
- Locate the file webapps/geoserver/WEB-INF/lib/gt-complex-x.y.jar and remove
- Restart Jetty
The following extensions and community modules are known to have a direct dependency on gt-complex jar and are not expected function properly without it. This is not comprehensive list and additional GeoServer functionality may be dependent on the availability of gt-complex jar:
- Extensions: Application Schema, Catalog Services for the Web, MongoDB Data Store
- Community Modules: Features-Templating, OGC API Modules, Smart Data Loader, SOLR Data Store
Patch available for prior releases:
- Patched gt-app-schema, gt-complex and gt-xsd-core jars may be downloaded from the release page for GeoServer: 2.25.1, 2.24.3, 2.24.2, 2.23.2, 2.21.5, 2.20.7, 2.20.4, 2.19.2, 2.18.0.
- To use follow the instructions above to locate WEB-INF/lib folder
- Replace gt-app-schema, gt-complex and gt-xsd-core jars with those supplied by the patch
References
https://github.com/geotools/geotools/security/advisories/GHSA-w3pj-wh35-fq8w
https://osgeo-org.atlassian.net/browse/GEOT-7587
geotools/geotools#4797
https://github.com/Warxim/CVE-2022-41852?tab=readme-ov-file#workaround-for-cve-2022-41852
References
- GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv
- https://github.com/geotools/geotools/security/advisories/GHSA-w3pj-wh35-fq8w
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-36401
- geotools/geotools#4797
- https://github.com/Warxim/CVE-2022-41852?tab=readme-ov-file#workaround-for-cve-2022-41852
- https://osgeo-org.atlassian.net/browse/GEOT-7587
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