What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities
CVE-2020-26258: Server-Side Forgery Request can be activated unmarshalling with XStream
- Severity: high (CVSS 7.7 v3.1)
- Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
- EPSS: 81.8% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
- Public exploit or detection template: yes
- Published: 2020-12-16 · updated 2026-10-07
- Weakness: CWE-918
Description
XStream is a Java library to serialize objects to XML and back again. In XStream before version 1.4.15, a Server-Side Forgery Request vulnerability can be activated when unmarshalling. The vulnerability may allow a remote attacker to request data from internal resources that are not publicly available only by manipulating the processed input stream. If you rely on XStream's default blacklist of the Security Framework, you will have to use at least version 1.4.15. The reported vulnerability does not exist if running Java 15 or higher. No user is affected who followed the recommendation to setup XStream's Security Framework with a whitelist! Anyone relying on XStream's default blacklist can immediately switch to a whilelist for the allowed types to avoid the vulnerability. Users of XStream 1.4.14 or below who still want to use XStream default blacklist can use a workaround described in more detailed in the referenced advisories.
Affected products
- Apache Struts: before 6.0.0 — fixed in 6.0.0
- Debian Linux: 9.0, 10.0
- Fedoraproject Fedora: 33, 34, 35
- x-stream xstream: before 1.4.15 — fixed in 1.4.15
How to fix
Upgrade to a fixed version: Apache Struts 6.0.0; x-stream xstream 1.4.15. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.
References
- https://github.com/x-stream/xstream/security/advisories/GHSA-4cch-wxpw-8p28
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r97993e3d78e1f5389b7b172ba9f308440830ce5f051ee62714a0aa34@%3Ccommits.struts.apache.org%3E
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00042.html
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/22KVR6B5IZP3BGQ3HPWIO2FWWCKT3DHP
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/PVPHZA7VW2RRSDCOIPP2W6O5ND254TU7
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/QGXIU3YDPG6OGTDHMBLAFN7BPBERXREB
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210409-0005
- https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4828
- https://x-stream.github.io/CVE-2020-26258.html
- https://github.com/x-stream/xstream/security/advisories/GHSA-4cch-wxpw-8p28
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r97993e3d78e1f5389b7b172ba9f308440830ce5f051ee62714a0aa34%40%3Ccommits.struts.apache.org%3E
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00042.html
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