CVE-2024-46984: XML External Entity Reference (XXE) vulnerability can lead to a Server Side Request Forgery attack in gematik app-referencevalidator

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2024-09-19 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-611

Description

The reference validator is a tool to perform advanced validation of FHIR resources for TI applications and interoperability standards. The profile location routine in the referencevalidator commons package is vulnerable to `XML External Entities` attack due to insecure defaults of the used Woodstox WstxInputFactory. A malicious XML resource can lead to network requests issued by referencevalidator and thus to a `Server Side Request Forgery` attack. The vulnerability impacts applications which use referencevalidator to process XML resources from untrusted sources. The problem has been patched with the 2.5.1 version of the referencevalidator. Users are strongly recommended to update to this version or a more recent one. A pre-processing or manual analysis of input XML resources on existence of DTD definitions or external entities can mitigate the problem.

Affected products

gematik app-referencevalidator: before 2.5.1 — fixed in 2.5.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: gematik app-referencevalidator 2.5.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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