peter bassill · operator
$ cve CVE-2021-27850 JSON

CVE-2021-27850

9.8
CRITICAL · CVSS 3.1 · EPSS 93.5% (pctl 100)

Patch early

EPSS 93.5% — above the 10% action threshold.

Description

A critical unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability was found all recent versions of Apache Tapestry. The affected versions include 5.4.5, 5.5.0, 5.6.2 and 5.7.0. The vulnerability I have found is a bypass of the fix for CVE-2019-0195. Recap: Before the fix of CVE-2019-0195 it was possible to download arbitrary class files from the classpath by providing a crafted asset file URL. An attacker was able to download the file `AppModule.class` by requesting the URL `http://localhost:8080/assets/something/services/AppModule.class` which contains a HMAC secret key. The fix for that bug was a blacklist filter that checks if the URL ends with `.class`, `.properties` or `.xml`. Bypass: Unfortunately, the blacklist solution can simply be bypassed by appending a `/` at the end of the URL: `http://localhost:8080/assets/something/services/AppModule.class/` The slash is stripped after the blacklist check and the file `AppModule.class` is loaded into the response. This class usually contains the HMAC secret key which is used to sign serialized Java objects. With the knowledge of that key an attacker can sign a Java gadget chain that leads to RCE (e.g. CommonsBeanUtils1 from ysoserial). Solution for this vulnerability: * For Apache Tapestry 5.4.0 to 5.6.1, upgrade to 5.6.2 or later. * For Apache Tapestry 5.7.0, upgrade to 5.7.1 or later.

Scoring

CVSS9.8 (CRITICAL, v3.1)
VectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS93.47% — more likely to be exploited than 100% of all CVEs
WeaknessCWE-200
On CISA KEVno
Public exploitnone known
Published2021-04-15
Last modified2026-06-17

Affected (1)

VendorProduct
apachetapestry

References

→ the Explorer  ·  watch your stack  ·  NVD