CVE-2026-55223
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 · uneditedc3p0 is a JDBC Connection pooling library. In versions prior to 0.14.0, c3p0 in combination with other libraries, can compose to a "sink" for deserialization gadgets. The JDBC spec's DataSource.getConnection() and ConnectionPoolDataSource.getPooledConnection() match the getXXX() form, so JavaBean libraries treat them as "properties" assumed safe while they actually call into JDBC drivers. Attackers can thus craft malicious DataSource objects whose property lookups invoke vulnerable drivers, then smuggle them in serialized form to where an application deserializes and auto-resolves bean properties — triggering the attack. This requires a susceptible DataSource/ConnectionPoolDataSource and JDBC driver on the CLASSPATH, plus a carrier that auto-looks-up JavaBean properties on = deserialization, most commonly a collection paired with an Apache commons-beanutils Comparator that sorts by bean properties. c3p0 supplied that susceptible DataSource/ConnectionPoolDataSource, which was an essential component of the trigger. This issue has been fixed in version 0.14.0.
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 analysisThe application rebuilds objects from attacker-supplied serialized data, and the act of rebuilding can trigger dangerous code paths. In many runtimes this leads straight to remote code execution. The durable fix is to avoid deserializing untrusted input — or to use a strict, type-limited format with integrity checks.
General guidance for the deserialization of untrusted data class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
CVSS 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
- Authentication
- X
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- X
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
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.
dbcve · scopedc3p0 version 0.14.0
- 1. Identify all locations where c3p0 dependency is declared (e.g., pom.xml, build.gradle, lib directory, classpath)
- 2. Locate the current c3p0 version in use by examining dependency management files or JAR manifests
- 3. Upgrade c3p0 to version 0.14.0 or later in all dependency configuration files
- 4. Rebuild the application to incorporate the updated library
- 5. Redeploy the rebuilt application to all affected environments
- 6. Verify the application functions correctly with the new c3p0 version
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-55223 — 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-2026-55223 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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