x-stream · xstream
The XStream Java library (product: xstream, from vendor x-stream) contains a flaw in its XML deserialization handling that allows a crafted input stream to consume a large amount of CPU time, with the risk greater for systems that rely on its default blacklist rather than a whitelist limited to the required types. A remote attacker with no authentication, no required user interaction, and only network access to a service that deserializes untrusted input can exhaust CPU on the target and cause denial of service.
XStream is a Java library to serialize objects to XML and back again. In XStream before version 1.4.16, there is vulnerability which may allow a remote attacker to allocate 100% CPU time on the target system depending on CPU type or parallel execution of such a payload resulting in a denial of service only by manipulating the processed input stream. No user is affected who followed the recommendation to setup XStream's security framework with a whitelist limited to the minimal required types. If you rely on XStream's default blacklist of the Security Framework, you will have to use at least version 1.4.16.
Public exploit code (PoC-in-GitHub) appeared 48 days after disclosure. No confirmed exploitation is recorded.
No ATT&CK techniques are linked to this CVE yet. MITRE CTID has not mapped it, and no report passage in the corpus ties it to a technique.
1 package in 1 ecosystem. Main package: com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream.
Upgrade to 1.4.18 or later
Fixes this CVE and 12 other known vulnerabilities in this package (CVE-2013-7285, CVE-2019-10173, +10).
Set the version to 1.4.18 or later in your pom.xml or build.gradle.
First fixed in 1.4.16 for CVE-2021-21341.
| If you run | Upgrade to |
|---|---|
| All versions before 1.4.16 | 1.4.18first fix for this CVE: 1.4.16 |
“Up to” means the second version is the fix and is not affected.