MPXJ through 8.1.3 allows XXE attacks. This affects the GanttProjectReader and PhoenixReader components.

Impact MPXJ used the default configuration when creating a DocumentBuilder instance, which leaves doctype declarations enabled, when parsing the XML content of the ZTIMEINTERVALS column from a Merlin project SQLite file. This would allow a carefully crafted XML payload to read an arbitrary file. However, although an arbitrary file can be read, the way the resulting parsed XML is processed by MPXJ means that the data it contains is unlikely to be available for exfiltration.

Patches The patch is included in MPXJ 16.4.1

Workarounds Potential workarounds include: Avoid reading Merlin project files with MPXJ Only accept Merlin project files from trusted sources Preprocess Merlin SQLite databases to strip doctype declarations from the ZTIMEINTERVALS column

Impact When reading a suitably crafted PRX or STX file, MPXJ can be made to write files to arbitrary locations in the file system.

Patches This issue is addressed in MPXJ version 16.5.0.

Workarounds Do not read PRX or STX files from untrusted sources.

common/InputStreamHelper.java in Packwood MPXJ before 8.3.5 allows directory traversal in the zip stream handler flow, leading to the writing of files to arbitrary locations.

Impact On Unix-like operating systems (not Windows or macos), MPXJ's use of File.createTempFile(..) results in temporary files being created with the permissions -rw-r--r--. This means that any other user on the system can read the contents of this file. When MPXJ is reading a type of schedule file which requires the creation of a temporary file or directory, a knowledgeable local user could locate these transient files while they are in use and would then be able to read the schedule being processed by MPXJ.

Patches The problem has been patched, MPXJ version 10.14.1 and later includes the necessary changes.

Workarounds Setting java.io.tmpdir to a directory to which only the user running the application has access will prevent other users from accessing these temporary files.

For more information If you have any questions or comments about this advisory Open an issue in https://github.com/joniles/mpxj