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Fencer Intel
critical 9.8

CVE-2020-10683 json

dom4j allows External Entities by default which might enable XXE attacks

published 6y ago modified 2mo ago also GHSA-hwj3-m3p6-hj38 , EUVD-2020-0492

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
7.3%
EPSS 7.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 94%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

dom4j before 2.0.3 and 2.1.x before 2.1.3 allows external DTDs and External Entities by default, which might enable XXE attacks. However, there is popular external documentation from OWASP showing how to enable the safe, non-default behavior in any application that uses dom4j.

Patch / fix

  • maven org.dom4j:dom4j 2.0.3, 2.1.3
  • dom4j_project dom4j 2.0.3, 2.1.3
  • dom4j Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.1.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-10683

  • dom4j Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 1.6.1+dfsg.3-2ubuntu1.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2020-10683

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

  • eap7-dom4j jboss enterprise application platform 7.3, jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 2.1.3-1.redhat_00001.1.el8eap
  • eap7-wildfly jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 7.2.9-4.GA_redhat_00003.1.el8eap
  • eap7-resteasy jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 3.6.1-10.SP9_redhat_00001.1.el8eap
  • eap7-undertow jboss enterprise application platform 7.3, jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 2.0.30-4.SP4_redhat_00001.1.el8eap
  • eap7-weld-ejb jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 3.0.6-4.Final_redhat_00004.1.el8eap
  • eap7-weld-jta jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 3.0.6-4.Final_redhat_00004.1.el8eap
  • eap7-weld-web jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 3.0.6-4.Final_redhat_00004.1.el8eap
  • eap7-hibernate jboss enterprise application platform 7.3, jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 5.3.17-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el8eap

red hat advisories RHSA-2020:3639RHSA-2020:3638RHSA-2020:3637RHSA-2020:3463RHSA-2020:3462RHSA-2020:3461

  • dom4j Manager Server Module 4.0 1.6.1-4.9.4
  • dom4j Manager Server 3.2 1.6.1-27.7.2

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2020:1383-1SUSE-SU-2020:1382-1

  • dom4j openSUSE Tumbleweed 1.6.1-33.6
  • dom4j openSUSE Leap 15.1 1.6.1-lp151.6.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10724-1openSUSE-SU-2020:0719-1

Is CVE-2020-10683 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.

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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-2020-10683 updated cvss 7.4

dom4j: XML External Entity vulnerability in default SAX parser

  • Red Hat BPM Suite 6 dom4j
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 dom4j, dom4j-demo, dom4j-manual, dom4j-javadoc
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat JBoss BRMS 5 dom4j Red Hat JBoss BRMS 6 dom4j Red Hat JBoss Data Virtualization 6 dom4j Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 dom4j Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6 dom4j Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Web Server 2 dom4j
    +8 more products
    Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Web Server 3 dom4j Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6 dom4j Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works 6 dom4j Red Hat JBoss Operations Network 3 dom4j Red Hat JBoss SOA Platform 5 dom4j Red Hat Mobile Application Platform 4 dom4j Red Hat OpenShift Application Runtimes dom4j Red Hat Satellite 5 dom4j
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Satellite 6 candlepin, candlepin-selinux
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Software Collections rh-maven35-dom4j, rh-java-common-dom4j, rh-maven35-dom4j-javadoc, rh-java-common-dom4j-demo, rh-java-common-dom4j-manual, rh-java-common-dom4j-javadoc
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat support for Spring Boot dom4j
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat EAP-CD 20 Tech Preview
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:3585
  • Red Hat Fuse 7.8.0
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:5568
show 11 more
  • Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.2 for RHEL 6 Server eap7-dom4j 2.1.3-1.redhat_00001.1.el6eap, eap7-wildfly 7.2.9-4.GA_redhat_00003.1.el6eap, eap7-resteasy 3.6.1-10.SP9_redhat_00001.1.el6eap, eap7-undertow 2.0.30-4.SP4_redhat_00001.1.el6eap, eap7-weld-ejb 3.0.6-4.Final_redhat_00004.1.el6eap, eap7-weld-jta 3.0.6-4.Final_redhat_00004.1.el6eap, +83 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:3637
  • Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.2 for RHEL 7 Server eap7-dom4j 2.1.3-1.redhat_00001.1.el7eap, eap7-wildfly 7.2.9-4.GA_redhat_00003.1.el7eap, eap7-resteasy 3.6.1-10.SP9_redhat_00001.1.el7eap, eap7-undertow 2.0.30-4.SP4_redhat_00001.1.el7eap, eap7-weld-ejb 3.0.6-4.Final_redhat_00004.1.el7eap, eap7-weld-jta 3.0.6-4.Final_redhat_00004.1.el7eap, +85 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:3638
  • Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.2 for RHEL 8 eap7-dom4j 2.1.3-1.redhat_00001.1.el8eap, eap7-wildfly 7.2.9-4.GA_redhat_00003.1.el8eap, eap7-resteasy 3.6.1-10.SP9_redhat_00001.1.el8eap, eap7-undertow 2.0.30-4.SP4_redhat_00001.1.el8eap, eap7-weld-ejb 3.0.6-4.Final_redhat_00004.1.el8eap, eap7-weld-jta 3.0.6-4.Final_redhat_00004.1.el8eap, +83 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:3639
  • Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.3 for BaseOS-8 eap7-dom4j 2.1.3-1.redhat_00001.1.el8eap, eap7-wildfly 7.3.2-4.GA_redhat_00002.1.el8eap, eap7-netty 4.1.48-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el8eap, eap7-jackson-core 2.10.4-1.redhat_00001.1.el8eap, eap7-undertow 2.0.30-4.SP4_redhat_00001.1.el8eap, eap7-hibernate 5.3.17-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el8eap, +75 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:3463
  • Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.3 for RHEL 6 Server eap7-dom4j 2.1.3-1.redhat_00001.1.el6eap, eap7-wildfly 7.3.2-4.GA_redhat_00002.1.el6eap, eap7-netty 4.1.48-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el6eap, eap7-jackson-core 2.10.4-1.redhat_00001.1.el6eap, eap7-undertow 2.0.30-4.SP4_redhat_00001.1.el6eap, eap7-hibernate 5.3.17-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el6eap, +75 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:3461
  • Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.3 for RHEL 7 Server eap7-dom4j 2.1.3-1.redhat_00001.1.el7eap, eap7-wildfly 7.3.2-4.GA_redhat_00002.1.el7eap, eap7-netty 4.1.48-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el7eap, eap7-jackson-core 2.10.4-1.redhat_00001.1.el7eap, eap7-undertow 2.0.30-4.SP4_redhat_00001.1.el7eap, eap7-hibernate 5.3.17-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el7eap, +77 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:3462
  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:3464
  • Red Hat Single Sign-On 7.4.2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:3501
  • Red Hat RHDM 7.9.0
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:4960
  • Red Hat RHPAM 7.9.0
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2020:4961
  • Red Hat JBoss Data Grid 7 dom4j Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 3.11 jenkins Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 jenkins
    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

7.27% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 94% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
GitHub 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
maven org.dom4j:dom4j
<2.0.3
>=2.1.0, <2.1.3
2.0.3
2.1.3
maven dom4j:dom4j
<=1.6.1
 no fix listed

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-611 Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference

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.