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Fencer Intel
medium 5.8

CVE-2012-5784 json

Man-in-the-middle attack in Apache Axis

published 2012-11-04 14 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also GHSA-55w9-c3g2-4rrh , EUVD-2020-1408

cvss
5.8
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
5.7%
EPSS 5.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 93%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Apache Axis 1.4 and earlier, as used in PayPal Payments Pro, PayPal Mass Pay, PayPal Transactional Information SOAP, the Java Message Service implementation in Apache ActiveMQ, and other products, does not verify that the server hostname matches a domain name in the subject's Common Name (CN) or subjectAltName field of the X.509 certificate, which allows man-in-the-middle attackers to spoof SSL servers via an arbitrary valid certificate.

Patch / fix

  • axis Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1.4-16.1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2012-5784

  • devtoolset-2-axis developer toolset 2.1 1.4-23.el6
  • jasperreports-server-pro rhev manager 3 5.5.0-4.el6ev
  • axis RHEL 5 1.2.1-2jpp.7.el5_9
  • axis-manual RHEL 5 1.2.1-2jpp.7.el5_9
  • axis-javadoc RHEL 5 1.2.1-2jpp.7.el5_9
  • axis RHEL 6 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3
  • axis-manual RHEL 6 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3
  • axis-javadoc RHEL 6 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3

red hat advisories RHSA-2014:1123RHSA-2014:0037RHSA-2013:0683RHSA-2013:0269

  • axis SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP1, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 1.4-5.8.1
  • axis SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES 12 SP4 +1 more 1.4-290.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2019:1373-2SUSE-SU-2019:1382-1SUSE-SU-2019:1373-1

  • axis openSUSE Leap 15.0 1.4-lp150.9.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2019:1497-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2012-5784 updated cvss 4.3

axis: missing connection hostname check against X.509 certificate name

  • Red Hat JBoss Portal 5 axis
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Developer Toolset 2 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Server devtoolset-2-axis 1.4-23.el6 Red Hat Developer Toolset 2 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Workstation devtoolset-2-axis 1.4-23.el6
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2014:1123
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) axis 1.2.1-2jpp.7.el5_9, axis-manual 1.2.1-2jpp.7.el5_9, axis-javadoc 1.2.1-2jpp.7.el5_9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2013:0683
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Optional (v. 6) axis 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3, axis-manual 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3, axis-javadoc 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux HPC Node (v. 6) axis 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux HPC Node Optional (v. 6) axis 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3, axis-manual 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3, axis-javadoc 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 6) axis 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 6) axis 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3, axis-manual 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3, axis-javadoc 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 6) axis 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3
    +1 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 6) axis 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3, axis-manual 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3, axis-javadoc 1.2.1-7.3.el6_3
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2013:0269
  • Red Hat RHEV-M 3.3 jasperreports-server-pro 5.5.0-4.el6ev
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2014:0037

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

5.72% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 93% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • cs.utexas.edu http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/shmat_ccs12.pdf referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 5.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
maven org.apache.axis:axis
<=1.4
 no fix listed
maven axis:axis
<=1.4
 no fix listed

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.