TikaApplication · Apache
CVE-2018-11796
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedIn Apache Tika 1.19 (CVE-2018-11761), we added an entity expansion limit for XML parsing. However, Tika reuses SAXParsers and calls reset() after each parse, which, for Xerces2 parsers, as per the documentation, removes the user-specified SecurityManager and thus removes entity expansion limits after the first parse. Apache Tika versions from 0.1 to 1.19 are therefore still vulnerable to entity expansions which can lead to a denial of service attack. Users should upgrade to 1.19.1 or later.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceApache Tika reuses SAXParsers and calls reset() after each parse, which for Xerces2 parsers removes the user-specified SecurityManager that was set to limit entity expansion. This allows attackers to craft malicious XML documents with nested entity expansions that can cause denial of service by exhausting memory or CPU resources.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
TikaApplication
>= 0.1, <= 1.19CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Apache Tika installation and versionCheck for the Tika JAR file (tika-core-*.jar) in your application dependencies or classpath, and identify its version number from the filename or Maven/Gradle dependency declaration.Affected if The installed Tika version is between 0.1 and 1.19 inclusive
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Confirm Tika is used for XML parsingReview your application code to determine if Tika is being called to parse documents, particularly XML or Office documents that may contain embedded XML content.Affected if Your application uses Tika to parse untrusted documents
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Check for custom SecurityManager configurationSearch your codebase for any XMLReader or SAXParser configuration that sets a SecurityManager or feature for entity expansion limits (such as FEATURE_SECURE_PROCESSING or a custom EntityResolver with expansion limits).Affected if No custom entity expansion limits are configured, or they rely on the parser's default SecurityManager which gets reset between parses
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Verify Xerces2 parser usageCheck if Xerces2 (xercesImpl-*.jar) is present in the classpath and is being used as the underlying XML parser by Tika, as this is required for the reset() vulnerability to manifest.Affected if Xerces2 is the underlying XML parser and the application parses untrusted XML documents
You are affected if you run Apache Tika versions 0.1 through 1.19, parse untrusted XML or XML-containing documents, and rely on Xerces2 with entity expansion limits that can be cleared by the parser reset behavior.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpgrade Apache Tika to version 1.19.1 or later, which properly maintains entity expansion limits across parser reuse.
Fix this in Tika
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,144.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-11796 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2018-11796 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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