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.
Critical XXE in Apache Tika tika-core (1.13-3.2.1), tika-pdf-module (2.0.0-3.2.1) and tika-parsers (1.13-1.28.5) modules on all platforms allows an attacker to carry out XML External Entity injection via a crafted XFA file inside of a PDF.
Apache Tika before 1.14 allows Java code execution for serialized objects embedded in MATLAB files. The issue exists because Tika invokes JMatIO to do native deserialization.
Apache Tika before version 1.18 has a command injection vulnerability in tika-server. A remote attacker could exploit this to execute arbitrary commands via crafted headers.
External References:
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/b3ed4432380af767effd4c6f27665cc7b2686acccbefeb9f55851dca@%3Cdev.tika.apache.org%3E
A carefully crafted or corrupt zip file can cause an OOM in Apache Tika's RecursiveParserWrapper in versions 1.7-1.21. Users should upgrade to 1.22 or later.
Apache Tika before 1.13 does not properly initialize the XML parser or choose handlers, which might allow remote attackers to conduct XML External Entity (XXE) attacks via vectors involving (1) spreadsheets in OOXML files and (2) XMP metadata in PDF and other file formats, a related issue to CVE-2016-2175.
A carefully crafted package/compressed file that, when unzipped/uncompressed yields the same file (a quine), causes a StackOverflowError in Apache Tika's RecursiveParserWrapper in versions 1.7-1.21. Apache Tika users should upgrade to 1.22 or later.
In Apache Tika 0.1 to 1.18, the XML parsers were not configured to limit entity expansion. They were therefore vulnerable to an entity expansion vulnerability which can lead to a denial of service attack.
Apache Tika 1.19 included an incomplete fix for CVE-2018-11761 which added an entity expansion limit for XML parsing. However, Tika reuses SAXParsers and calls reset() after each parse, which, for Xerces2 parsers, as per the documentation, removes the user-specified SecurityManager and thus removes entity expansion limits after the first parse. Apache Tika 1.19 is therefore still vulnerable to entity expansions which can lead to a denial of service attack.
External Reference:
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/88de8350cda9b184888ec294c813c5bd8a2081de8fd3666f8904bc05@%3Cdev.tika.apache.org%3E
Upstream Issue:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/projects/TIKA/issues/TIKA-2727
Upstream Patch:
https://github.com/apache/tika/commit/86d4ba1e
An XXE issue in SAXBuilder in JDOM through 2.0.6 allows attackers to cause a denial of service via a crafted HTTP request.
Improper Protection of Alternate Path vulnerability in Apache Tika.
This issue affects Apache Tika: from 4.0.0-alpha-1 before 4.0.0-beta-1.
Users are recommended to upgrade to version 4.0.0-beta-1, which fixes the issue.
A carefully crafted or corrupt sqlite file can cause an infinite loop in Apache Tika's SQLite3Parser in versions 1.8-1.19.1 of Apache Tika.
In Apache Tika 1.19 to 1.21, a carefully crafted 2003ml or 2006ml file could consume all available SAXParsers in the pool and lead to very long hangs. Apache Tika users should upgrade to 1.22 or later.
Last updated 4 September 2026
In Apache Tika 0.9 to 1.18, in a rare edge case where a user does not specify an extract directory on the commandline (--extract-dir=) and the input file has an embedded file with an absolute path, such as "C:/evil.bat", tika-app would overwrite that file.
A carefully crafted (or fuzzed) file can trigger an infinite loop in Apache Tika's BPGParser in versions of Apache Tika before 1.18.
A carefully crafted (or fuzzed) file can trigger an infinite loop in Apache Tika's ChmParser in versions of Apache Tika before 1.18.
A carefully crafted or corrupt PSD file can cause excessive memory usage in Apache Tika's PSDParser in versions 1.0-1.23.
In Apache Tika, a regular expression in our StandardsText class, used by the StandardsExtractingContentHandler could lead to a denial of service caused by backtracking on a specially crafted file. This only affects users who are running the StandardsExtractingContentHandler, which is a non-standard handler.
Reference:
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2022/05/16/3
We failed to apply the fix for CVE-2022-30126 to the 1.x branch in the 1.28.2 release. In Apache Tika, a regular expression in the StandardsText class, used by the StandardsExtractingContentHandler could lead to a denial of service caused by backtracking on a specially crafted file. This only affects users who are running the StandardsExtractingContentHandler, which is a non-standard handler. This is fixed in 1.28.3.
A carefully crafted or corrupt file may trigger a System.exit in Tika's OneNote Parser. Crafted or corrupted files can also cause out of memory errors and/or infinite loops in Tika's ICNSParser, MP3Parser, MP4Parser, SAS7BDATParser, OneNoteParser and ImageParser.
http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2020-9489 http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2020/q2/69 https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r4d943777e36ca3aa6305a45da5acccc54ad894f2d5a07186cfa2442c%40%3Cdev.tika.apache.org%3E
A carefully crafted or corrupt PSD file can cause an infinite loop in Apache Tika's PSDParser in versions 1.0-1.23.
In Apache Tika 1.2 to 1.18, a carefully crafted file can trigger an infinite loop in the IptcAnpaParser.
A carefully crafted or corrupt file may trigger an infinite loop in Tika's MP3Parser up to and including Tika 1.25. Apache Tika users should upgrade to 1.26 or later.
The BPG parser in versions of Apache Tika before 1.28.2 and 2.4.0 may allocate an unreasonable amount of memory on carefully crafted files.
Apache Tika provides optional functionality to run itself as a web service to allow remote use. When used in this manner, it's possible for a 3rd party to pass a 'fileUrl' header to the Apache Tika Server (tika-server) before version 1.10. This header lets a remote client request that the server fetches content from the URL provided, including files from the server's local filesystem. Depending on the file permissions set on the local filesystem, this could be used to return sensitive content from the server machine.
This vulnerability only exists if you are running the tika-server version 1.9, and you allow un-trusted access to the tika-server URL. Usage of Apache Tika as a standard library is not affected.
A carefully crafted or corrupt file may trigger a System.exit in Tika's OneNote Parser. Crafted or corrupted files can also cause out of memory errors and/or infinite loops in Tika's ICNSParser, MP3Parser, MP4Parser, SAS7BDATParser, OneNoteParser and ImageParser.
http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2020-9489 http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2020/q2/69 https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r4d943777e36ca3aa6305a45da5acccc54ad894f2d5a07186cfa2442c%40%3Cdev.tika.apache.org%3E
The initial fixes in CVE-2022-30126 and CVE-2022-30973 for regexes in the StandardsExtractingContentHandler were insufficient, and we found a separate, new regex DoS in a different regex in the StandardsExtractingContentHandler. These are now fixed in 1.28.4 and 2.4.1.
We failed to apply the fix for CVE-2022-30126 to the 1.x branch in the 1.28.2 release. In Apache Tika, a regular expression in the StandardsText class, used by the StandardsExtractingContentHandler could lead to a denial of service caused by backtracking on a specially crafted file.
Reference:
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2022/05/31/2