CVE-2021-30006
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 IntelliJ IDEA before 2020.3.3, XXE was possible, leading to information disclosure.
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 · moderate confidenceAn XML External Entity (XXE) vulnerability in IntelliJ IDEA versions prior to 2020.3.3 allows attackers to read local files or conduct denial-of-service attacks by supplying malicious XML content that the IDE processes when opening project files.
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< 2020.3.3CVSS 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
- High
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
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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Check IntelliJ IDEA version in the IDEOpen IntelliJ IDEA and navigate to Help > About (on macOS: IntelliJ IDEA > About IntelliJ IDEA). The version number is displayed in the About dialog.Affected if The version shown is 2020.3.2 or earlier (for example, 2020.3.2, 2020.3.1, 2020.3, 2020.2.x, 2020.1.x, etc.)
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Verify version via installation directoryCheck the contents of the installation directory. On Linux: typically /opt/idea* or /usr/share/idea*. On Windows: typically C:\Program Files\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA* or C:\Users\{user}\AppData\Local\JetBrains\IntelliJIdea*Affected if The version identifier in the installation folder path or in a product-info.json file is older than 2020.3.3
If IntelliJ IDEA version is 2020.3.3 or newer, this XXE vulnerability is not present; versions below 2020.3.3 are affected when the IDE opens project files containing malicious XML.
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 data2020.3.3
Update IntelliJ IDEA to version 2020.3.3 or later to obtain the patched version with XXE protection enabled in XML parsing.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing1.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-30006 — 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-2021-30006 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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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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