CVEs / CVE-2024-36401

CVE-2024-36401: OSGeo GeoServer GeoTools Eval Injection Vulnerability

• Known exploited in the CISA KEV catalog since 15 Jul 2024
• critical 9.8 CVSS 3.1 (NVD)
• EPSS 99.8% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99% of CVEs (30 Oct 2026)
• Last changed at its sources 28 Oct 2026

Summary

OSGeo GeoServer GeoTools contains an improper neutralization of directives in dynamically evaluated code vulnerability due to unsafely evaluating property names as XPath expressions. This allows unauthenticated attackers to conduct remote code execution via specially crafted input.

Description

GeoServer is an open source server that allows users to share and edit geospatial data. Prior to versions 2.22.6, 2.23.6, 2.24.4, and 2.25.2, multiple OGC request parameters allow Remote Code Execution (RCE) by unauthenticated users through specially crafted input against a default GeoServer installation due to unsafely evaluating property names as XPath expressions. The GeoTools library API that GeoServer calls evaluates property/attribute names for feature types in a way that unsafely passes them to the commons-jxpath library which can execute arbitrary code when evaluating XPath expressions. This XPath evaluation is intended to be used only by complex feature types (i.e., Application Schema data stores) but is incorrectly being applied to simple feature types as well which makes this vulnerability apply to **ALL** GeoServer instances. No public PoC is provided but this vulnerability has been confirmed to be exploitable through WFS GetFeature, WFS GetPropertyValue, WMS GetMap, WMS GetFeatureInfo, WMS GetLegendGraphic and WPS Execute requests. This vulnerability can lead to executing arbitrary code. Versions 2.22.6, 2.23.6, 2.24.4, and 2.25.2 contain a patch for the issue. A workaround exists by removing the `gt-complex-x.y.jar` file from the GeoServer where `x.y` is the GeoTools version (e.g., `gt-complex-31.1.jar` if running GeoServer 2.25.1). This will remove the vulnerable code from GeoServer but may break some GeoServer functionality or prevent GeoServer from deploying if the gt-complex module is needed.

Affected and fixed versions

Package versions from GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv, GHSA-w3pj-wh35-fq8w.

Exploitation

Severity

References

• CVE-2024-36401 on NVD
• CVE-2024-36401 in the CISA KEV catalog
• https://github.com/geoserver/geoserver/security/advisories/GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv (cited by CISA)
• https://github.com/geotools/geotools/pull/4797 (cited by CISA)
• CVE-2024-36401 on OSV
• https://github.com/Warxim/CVE-2022-41852?tab=readme-ov-file#workaround-for-cve-2022-41852 Exploit, Third Party Advisory
• https://github.com/geoserver/geoserver/security/advisories/GHSA-6jj6-gm7p-fcvv Mitigation, Vendor Advisory
• https://github.com/geotools/geotools/pull/4797 Issue Tracking, Patch
• https://github.com/geotools/geotools/security/advisories/GHSA-w3pj-wh35-fq8w Exploit, Vendor Advisory
• https://osgeo-org.atlassian.net/browse/GEOT-7587 Vendor Advisory
• https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/geoserver-rce-cve-2024-36401 Exploit, Third Party Advisory
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2024-36401 US Government Resource