CVE-2026-42404
MediumCVSS 6.5Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk42th percentile - higher than 42% of all known CVEs
Summary
Apache Neethi does not restrict URIs when manually fetching remote policy references through the PolicyReference API. An application can make outbound requests to arbitrary protocols and internal IP addresses. From version 3.2.2, only http/https URIs are allowed and link-local/multicast/any-local addresses are forbidden.
Risk Assessment
The vulnerability could be exploited for internal network scanning or SSRF attacks, potentially leading to unauthorized access to internal resources. However, it requires explicit API invocation by the application.
Recommendation
Upgrade Apache Neethi to version 3.2.2, which enforces protocol and address restrictions. Review applications using PolicyReference for uncontrolled URIs.
Other vulnerabilities in Apache Neethi
See all- CVE-2026-66144High
Denial of service vulnerability in Apache Neethi when manually retrieving remote policy references via API. Retrieving a huge policy can cause resource exhaustion. Fixed in version 3.2.3 by imposing a default maximum data size.
- CVE-2026-66143High
Bypass of the maximum number of normalized policy alternatives in Apache Neethi 3.2.2 via crafted policies, potentially leading to DoS via resource consumption. Fixed in version 3.2.3.
- CVE-2026-66142High
Uncontrolled recursion vulnerability in Apache Neethi when parsing policies without IDs or with deeply nested structures, leading to DoS via memory exhaustion. Fixed in version 3.2.3.
- CVE-2026-42403High
Apache Neethi does not properly detect circular references in policy definitions. Circular references in WS-Policy documents can lead to an infinite loop or excessive recursion, resulting in a stack overflow or application hang.
- CVE-2026-42402High
Apache Neethi is vulnerable to a Denial of Service attack due to algorithmic complexity in policy normalization. Specially crafted WS-Policy documents can trigger an exponential Cartesian cross-product expansion during the normalization process, leading to unbounded memory allocation and JVM heap exhaustion.
Original NVD description (English source)
Apache Neethi does not impose any restrictions on URIs when manually fetching remote policy references through the PolicyReference API. When an application explicitly calls the API to retrieve a policy from a remote URI, an outbound request is made for arbitrary protocols and internal IP adddresses. From 3.2.2, only http or https URIs are allowed, and link-local/multicast/any-local addresses are forbidden. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.2.2, which fixes this issue.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS