CVE-2025-54988

CVSS 8.4 High
  • CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
  • Published: 2025-08-20T20:15:33.070

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.

Related CVE by CWE

No related CWE found.

Top CVE for Vendor

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Recently Exploited Similar Vulnerabilities

No recent KEV-listed items for this vendor/product.

How to fix CVE-2025-54988

CVE-2025-54988 is a high severity vulnerability affecting the affected product.

Description: 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. […]

Exploit Difficulty: MEDIUM
⏱️ Time to exploit: 1-4 hours
🛠️ Required skills: Intermediate security knowledge
💰 Public exploits: May be available

How to Fix:

1 Identify affected systems

- Check if you're running the affected product

2 Immediate actions

- Update to the latest patched version
- If patching is not immediately possible: restrict network exposure, apply least-privilege access

3 Verification

- Test the fix in a staging environment first
- Review logs for signs of exploitation
- Monitor for IOCs (Indicators of Compromise)

4 Long-term prevention

- Enable automatic security updates
- Set up vulnerability monitoring
- Review and harden security configurations

Exploit Difficulty Assessment

MEDIUM
⏱️ Time to Exploit: 1-4 hours
🛠️ Skills Required: Intermediate security knowledge
💰 Public Exploits: May be available

Vulnerability Timeline

Aug 20, 2025
Vulnerability Published

CVE details first published to NVD database

Nov 12, 2025
Imported to Database

Added to this CVE tracking system

Detection Rules & IOCs

No specific detection rules generated for this vulnerability type.

No vendor/product data available.