What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-36480: Aerospike Java Client vulnerable to unsafe deserialization of server responses

• Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 1.8% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2023-08-04 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-502

Description

The Aerospike Java client is a Java application that implements a network protocol to communicate with an Aerospike server. Prior to versions 7.0.0, 6.2.0, 5.2.0, and 4.5.0 some of the messages received from the server contain Java objects that the client deserializes when it encounters them without further validation. Attackers that manage to trick clients into communicating with a malicious server can include especially crafted objects in its responses that, once deserialized by the client, force it to execute arbitrary code. This can be abused to take control of the machine the client is running on. Versions 7.0.0, 6.2.0, 5.2.0, and 4.5.0 contain a patch for this issue.

Affected products

• aerospike-client-java: before 4.5.0; from 5.0.0 before 5.2.0; from 6.0.0 before 6.2.0 — fixed in 4.5.0, 5.2.0, 6.2.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: aerospike-client-java 4.5.0, 5.2.0, 6.2.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/blob/e40a49b3db0d2b3d45068910e1cb9d917c795315/client/src/com/aerospike/client/async/AsyncRead.java#L68
• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/blob/e40a49b3db0d2b3d45068910e1cb9d917c795315/client/src/com/aerospike/client/async/NettyCommand.java#L1157
• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/blob/e40a49b3db0d2b3d45068910e1cb9d917c795315/client/src/com/aerospike/client/async/NettyCommand.java#L489
• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/blob/e40a49b3db0d2b3d45068910e1cb9d917c795315/client/src/com/aerospike/client/async/NettyCommand.java#L596
• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/blob/e40a49b3db0d2b3d45068910e1cb9d917c795315/client/src/com/aerospike/client/command/Buffer.java#L53
• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/blob/e40a49b3db0d2b3d45068910e1cb9d917c795315/client/src/com/aerospike/client/command/Command.java#L2083
• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/blob/e40a49b3db0d2b3d45068910e1cb9d917c795315/client/src/com/aerospike/client/util/Unpacker.java#L227
• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/commit/02bf28e62fb186f004c82c87b219db2fc5b8262a
• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/commit/51c65e32837da29435161a2d9c09bbdc2071ecae
• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/commit/66aafb4cd743cf53baffaeaf69b035f51d2e2e36
• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/commit/80c508cc5ecb0173ce92d7fab8cfab5e77bd9900
• https://github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-java/security/advisories/GHSA-jj95-55cr-9597

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