Loading...
Skip to main content
GeekWala

CVE-2025-68161 — Vulnerability in...

MEDIUM

Apache Log4j does not verify the TLS hostname in its Socket Appender

Published December 18, 2025Updated September 10, 2026Source: osv

What Should I Do?

Address in Next Maintenance Window

Low exploitation probability (0.28%). Schedule for your next planned update.

Summary

The Socket Appender in Apache Log4j Core versions 2.0-beta9 through 2.25.2 does not perform TLS hostname verification of the peer certificate, even when the [verifyHostName](https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/appenders/network.html#SslConfiguration-attr-verifyHostName) configuration attribute or the [log4j2.sslVerifyHostName](https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/systemproperties.html#log4j2.sslVerifyHostName) system property is set to true. This issue may allow a man-in-the-middle attacker to intercept or redirect log traffic under the following conditions: * The attacker is able to intercept or redirect network traffic between the client and the log receiver. * The attacker can present a server certificate issued by a certification authority trusted by the Socket Appender’s configured trust store (or by the default Java trust store if no custom trust store is configured). Users are advised to upgrade to Apache Log4j Core version 2.25.3, which addresses this issue. As an alternative mitigation, the Socket Appender may be configured to use a private or restricted trust root to limit the set of trusted certificates.

Advisory Timeline

  • First published December 18, 2025 (298 days ago).
  • Last revised September 10, 2026 — 265 days after initial publication.

Remediation

Upgrade to the fixed version using your package manager.

Maven
Update org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-core to 2.25.3 or later
<!-- Update pom.xml dependency version to 2.25.3 for org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-core -->

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

Affected Packages (1)

Affects 1 ecosystem: maven (1).

PackageEcosystemAffectedFixed In
org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-core
maven
2.0, 2.0-beta9, 2.0-rc1, 2.0-rc2 (+55 more)2.25.3

Vulnerability Classification

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

CVSS Score Breakdown

What the CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) 4.0 score means for each attack dimension.

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

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:L/SA:N

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2025-68161?
Apache Log4j does not verify the TLS hostname in its Socket Appender This vulnerability has been assigned a severity rating of MEDIUM (CVSS score: 4.0/10).
How do I check if my project is affected by CVE-2025-68161?
CVE-2025-68161 affects org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-core. It has a 0.3% probability of exploitation within 30 days (EPSS score). Use GeekWala's free vulnerability scanner to check your dependencies against CVE-2025-68161 and 200,000+ other known vulnerabilities.

Severity & Exploitability

CVSS Score
4.0

Exploitation requires specific conditions or has limited impact. Remediate within weeks.

EPSS Score (30-day exploit probability)
0.28%
Higher than 51% of vulnerabilities

This is an above-median EPSS score — 50.7% of tracked vulnerabilities score at or below it, putting its exploitation likelihood in the upper half of the tracked corpus.

Also Known As

GHSA-vc5p-v9hr-52mj

Related CVEs

More Maven advisories

Check if you're affected

Scan your dependencies to see if this vulnerability affects your projects.

Scan Your Dependencies