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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2019-5427 json

Billion laughs attack in c3p0

published 7y ago modified 4mo ago also GHSA-84p2-vf58-xhxv , EUVD-2019-0409

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.9%
EPSS 4.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 92%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

c3p0 version < 0.9.5.4 may be exploited by a billion laughs attack when loading XML configuration due to missing protections against recursive entity expansion when loading configuration.

Patch / fix

  • maven com.mchange:c3p0 0.9.5.4
  • mchange c3p0 0.9.5.4
  • c3p0 Debian 12 0.9.1.2-10.1~deb12u1
  • c3p0 Debian 14, Debian 13 0.9.1.2-10.1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2019-5427

  • c3p0 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 0.9.1.2-9+deb8u1ubuntu0.18.04.1
  • c3p0 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 0.9.1.2-10ubuntu0.20.04.1
  • c3p0 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 0.9.1.2-10ubuntu1
  • c3p0 Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 0.9.1.2-9+deb8u1ubuntu0.14.04.1~esm1
  • c3p0 Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 0.9.1.2-9+deb8u1ubuntu0.16.04.1~esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2019-5427

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • c3p0 Manager Server Module 4.2 0.9.5.5-150300.4.6.1
  • smdba Manager Server Module 4.2 1.7.10-0.150300.3.3.1
  • rhnlib Manager Server Module 4.2 4.2.6-150300.4.9.1
  • mgr-osad Manager Server Module 4.2 4.2.8-150300.2.9.1
  • mgr-push Manager Server Module 4.2 4.2.5-150300.2.9.1
  • spacecmd Manager Server Module 4.2 4.2.16-150300.4.18.1
  • susemanager Manager Server Module 4.2 4.2.28-150300.3.22.1
  • spacewalk-web Manager Server Module 4.2 4.2.26-150300.3.18.2

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2022:1397-1SUSE-SU-2022:0798-1

  • c3p0 openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.9.5.5-2.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11961-1

Is CVE-2019-5427 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

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-2019-5427 updated cvss 4.4

c3p0: loading XML configuration leads to denial of service

  • Red Hat BPM Suite 6 c3p0 Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Web Server 2 c3p0 Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6 c3p0 Red Hat JBoss SOA Platform 5 c3p0 Red Hat Mobile Application Platform 4 c3p0
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat OpenShift Application Runtimes c3p0
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Satellite 5 c3p0
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Storage 3 c3p0
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Fuse 7.6.0
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:0983
  • Red Hat Process Automation 7 c3p0 Red Hat Satellite 6 candlepin, candlepin-selinux
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

4.88% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 92% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • hackerone.com https://hackerone.com/reports/509315 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
GitHub 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
maven com.mchange:c3p0
<0.9.5.4
0.9.5.4

Affected products

  • n/a c3p0

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-776 Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs

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.