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CVE-2024-47873: PhpSpreadsheet XmlScanner bypass leads to XXE

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.8% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2024-11-18 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-611

Description

PhpSpreadsheet is a PHP library for reading and writing spreadsheet files. The XmlScanner class has a scan method which should prevent XXE attacks. However, prior to versions 1.9.4, 2.1.3, 2.3.2, and 3.4.0, the regexes used in the `scan` method and the findCharSet method can be bypassed by using UCS-4 and encoding guessing. An attacker can bypass the sanitizer and achieve an XML external entity attack. Versions 1.9.4, 2.1.3, 2.3.2, and 3.4.0 fix the issue.

Affected products

• PHPOffice PhpSpreadsheet: before 1.29.4; from 2.0.0 before 2.1.3; from 2.2.0 before 2.3.2; from 3.3.0 before 3.4.0 — fixed in 1.29.4, 2.1.3, 2.3.2, 3.4.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: PHPOffice PhpSpreadsheet 1.29.4, 2.1.3, 2.3.2, 3.4.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/blob/39fc51309181e82593b06e2fa8e45ef8333a0335/src/PhpSpreadsheet/Reader/Security/XmlScanner.php
• https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/security/advisories/GHSA-jw4x-v69f-hh5w
• https://owasp.org/www-community/vulnerabilities/XML_External_Entity_(XXE)_Processing
• https://www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-guessing-no-ext-info

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