{"id":64352,"date":"2025-08-27T11:38:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T11:38:35","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-09-08T17:18:35","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T23:18:35","slug":"cve-2025-54988-critical-xxe-vulnerability-in-apache-tika-s-pdf-parser-module","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-54988-critical-xxe-vulnerability-in-apache-tika-s-pdf-parser-module\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-54988: Critical XXE Vulnerability in Apache Tika\u2019s PDF Parser Module<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In this article, we delve into a recently discovered critical cybersecurity vulnerability (CVE-2025-54988) in Apache Tika&#8217;s tika-parser-pdf-module found in versions 1.13 through 3.2.1. This vulnerability has been allocated a high severity score of 9.8 by the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), signifying the potential for significant damage. It affects a broad range of platforms and has serious ramifications, including the potential for system compromise and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-53495-unauthorized-access-data-leakage-in-wikimedia-foundation-mediawiki-abusefilter-extension\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"72637\">data leakage<\/a> if exploited.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-54988<br \/>\nSeverity: Critical, with a CVSS score of 9.8<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Network<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: None<br \/>\nUser Interaction: None<br \/>\nImpact: An attacker exploiting this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-54122-unauthenticated-full-read-ssrf-vulnerability-in-manager-io-manager-accounting-software\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"72670\">vulnerability may be able to read<\/a> sensitive data, initiate malicious requests to internal resources, or trigger requests to third-party servers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-3605854045\" class=\"ameeb-content-2 ameeb-entity-placement\"><div style=\"border-left: 4px solid #555; padding-left: 20px; margin: 48px 0; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.6; max-width: 700px;\">\r\n  <h2 style=\"margin-top: 0; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"display: inline-flex; align-items: center; margin-right: 8px;\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Best-App-icon-Ameeba.png\" alt=\"Ameeba Chat Icon\" style=\"width: 40px; height: 40px;\" \/>\r\n    <\/a>\r\n    A new way to communicate\r\n  <\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 12px;\">\r\n    Ameeba Chat is built on encrypted identity, not personal profiles.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 16px;\">\r\n    Message, call, share files, and coordinate with identities kept separate.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <ul style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: 0; margin-bottom: 20px;\">\r\n    <li>\u2022 Encrypted identity<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Ameeba Chat authenticates access<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Aliases and categories<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, and files<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Secure notes for sensitive information<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 24px;\">\r\n    Private communication, rethought.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 12px;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\/download\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Download Ameeba Chat<\/a>\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ffffff; color: #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Learn More<\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n<p>Apache Tika (tika-parser-pdf-module) | 1.13 through 3.2.1<br \/>\nApache Tika (tika-parsers-standard-modules) | Until 3.2.1<br \/>\nApache Tika (tika-parsers-standard-package) | Until 3.2.1<br \/>\nApache Tika (tika-app) | Until 3.2.1<br \/>\nApache Tika (tika-grpc) | Until 3.2.1<br \/>\nApache Tika (tika-server-standard) | Until 3.2.1<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The vulnerability stems from the XML External Entity (XXE) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-54466-critical-code-injection-vulnerability-in-apache-ofbiz-scrum-plugin\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"80923\">injection flaw present in Apache<\/a> Tika&#8217;s PDF parser module. An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by using a crafted XFA file embedded within a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-50240-sql-injection-vulnerability-in-nbcio-boot-v1-0-3\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"71935\">PDF to carry out the XXE<\/a> injection. This would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-8714-critical-postgresql-vulnerability-allowing-malicious-code-injection-by-superusers\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"80651\">allow the attacker to read sensitive information or initiate malicious<\/a> requests to internal resources or third-party servers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-3838234311\" class=\"ameeb-content ameeb-entity-placement\"><div class=\"poptin-embedded\" data-id=\"f6b387694f681\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Shown below is a conceptual example of how an attacker might craft an XFA <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-52239-arbitrary-file-upload-vulnerability-in-zkeacms-v4-1\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"74561\">file to exploit the vulnerability<\/a>:<\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">&lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot; encoding=&quot;UTF-8&quot;?&gt;\n&lt;!DOCTYPE foo [&lt;!ELEMENT foo ANY &gt;\n&lt;!ENTITY xxe SYSTEM &quot;file:\/\/\/etc\/passwd&quot; &gt;]&gt;\n&lt;foo&gt;&amp;xxe;&lt;\/foo&gt;<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>In the above example, the attacker is trying to read the `\/etc\/passwd` <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-3671-critical-local-file-inclusion-vulnerability-in-wpgym-wordpress-gym-management-system-plugin\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"80522\">file from the system<\/a>. This file typically contains user account information, and if the attacker successfully reads this file, they could <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-44955-critical-vulnerability-in-ruckus-network-director-allows-jail-users-to-gain-root-access\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"75985\">gain sensitive information about the system&#8217;s user<\/a> accounts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recommended Mitigation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The recommended mitigation is to upgrade to Apache Tika version 3.2.2, which contains a fix for this issue. In case immediate patching is not possible, employing a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can provide temporary mitigation against this vulnerability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview In this article, we delve into a recently discovered critical cybersecurity vulnerability (CVE-2025-54988) in Apache Tika&#8217;s tika-parser-pdf-module found in versions 1.13 through 3.2.1. This vulnerability has been allocated a high severity score of 9.8 by the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), signifying the potential for significant damage. It affects a broad range of platforms [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"vendor":[103],"product":[],"attack_vector":[],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-64352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","vendor-apache"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64352"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73336,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64352\/revisions\/73336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64352"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=64352"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=64352"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=64352"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=64352"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=64352"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=64352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}