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CVE-2025-54988 — Vulnerability in...

CRITICAL

Apache Tika XXE Vulnerability via Crafted XFA File Inside a PDF

Published August 20, 2025Updated September 10, 2026Source: osv

Summary

Critical XXE in Apache Tika (tika-parser-pdf-module) in Apache Tika 1.13 through and including 3.2.1 on all platforms allows an attacker to carry out XML External Entity injection via a crafted XFA file inside of a PDF. An attacker may be able to read sensitive data or trigger malicious requests to internal resources or third-party servers. Note that the tika-parser-pdf-module is used as a dependency in several Tika packages including at least: tika-parsers-standard-modules, tika-parsers-standard-package, tika-app, tika-grpc and tika-server-standard. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.2.2, which fixes this issue.

Advisory Timeline

  • First published August 20, 2025 (418 days ago).
  • Last revised September 10, 2026 — 385 days after initial publication.

Remediation

Upgrade to the fixed version using your package manager.

Maven
Update org.apache.tika:tika-parser-pdf-module to 3.2.2 or later
<!-- Update pom.xml dependency version to 3.2.2 for org.apache.tika:tika-parser-pdf-module -->
Maven
Update org.apache.tika:tika-parsers to 2.0.0-ALPHA or later
<!-- Update pom.xml dependency version to 2.0.0-ALPHA for org.apache.tika:tika-parsers -->

After upgrading, run your dependency scanner again to confirm the vulnerability is resolved.

Affected Packages (2)

Affects 1 ecosystem: maven (2).

PackageEcosystemAffectedFixed In
org.apache.tika:tika-parser-pdf-module
maven
2.0.0, 2.0.0-ALPHA, 2.0.0-BETA, 2.1.0 (+20 more)3.2.2
org.apache.tika:tika-parsers
maven
1.13, 1.14, 1.15, 1.16 (+19 more)2.0.0-ALPHA

Vulnerability Classification

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) identifiers for this vulnerability type.

  • CWE-611
    XML External Entity (XXE)MITRE

CVSS Score Breakdown

What the CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) 9.8 score means for each attack dimension.

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2025-54988?
Apache Tika XXE Vulnerability via Crafted XFA File Inside a PDF This vulnerability has been assigned a severity rating of CRITICAL (CVSS score: 9.8/10).
How do I check if my project is affected by CVE-2025-54988?
CVE-2025-54988 affects org.apache.tika:tika-parser-pdf-module and org.apache.tika:tika-parsers. Use GeekWala's free vulnerability scanner to check your dependencies against CVE-2025-54988 and 200,000+ other known vulnerabilities.

Severity & Exploitability

CVSS Score
9.8

Exploitation is straightforward and causes maximum impact. Patch immediately.

Also Known As

GHSA-p72g-pv48-7w9x

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