Skip to content
Heist/ feed
Back to feed
Medium

Possible local file exfiltration by XML External entity injection

Type: advisorySources: OSV

Gradle is a build tool with a focus on build automation and support for multi-language development. In some cases, when Gradle parses XML files, resolving XML external entities is not disabled. Combined with an Out Of Band XXE attack (OOB-XXE), just parsing XML can lead to exfiltration of local text files to a remote server. Gradle parses XML files for several purposes. Most of the time, Gradle parses XML files it generated or were already present locally. Only Ivy XML descriptors and Maven POM files can be fetched from remote repositories and parsed by Gradle. In Gradle 7.6.3 and 8.4, resolving XML external entities has been disabled for all use cases to protect against this vulnerability. Gradle will now refuse to parse XML files that have XML external entities.

Products
Not specified
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
Not specified
CVEs
CVE-2023-42445
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
8 Nov 2026, 02:06 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

Possible local file exfiltration by XML External entity injection

core-osv · Original source

Published 6 Oct 2023, 13:52 UTC

Gradle is a build tool with a focus on build automation and support for multi-language development. In some cases, when Gradle parses XML files, resolving XML external entities is not disabled. Combined with an Out Of Band XXE attack (OOB-XXE), just parsing XML can lead to exfiltration of local text files to a remote server. Gradle parses XML files for several purposes. Most of the time, Gradle parses XML files it generated or were already present locally. Only Ivy XML descriptors and Maven POM files can be fetched from remote repositories and parsed by Gradle. In Gradle 7.6.3 and 8.4, resolving XML external entities has been disabled for all use cases to protect against this vulnerability. Gradle will now refuse to parse XML files that have XML external entities.

osv:CVE-2023-42445
Complete source record
{
  "id": "7b467b25270d2249065ac8ed7de0b4a959f6cbe4e6d0048876b2a4e59968de44",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-42445",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "Possible local file exfiltration by XML External entity injection",
    "summary": "Gradle is a build tool with a focus on build automation and support for multi-language development. In some cases, when Gradle parses XML files, resolving XML external entities is not disabled. Combined with an Out Of Band XXE attack (OOB-XXE), just parsing XML can lead to exfiltration of local text files to a remote server. Gradle parses XML files for several purposes. Most of the time, Gradle parses XML files it generated or were already present locally. Only Ivy XML descriptors and Maven POM files can be fetched from remote repositories and parsed by Gradle. In Gradle 7.6.3 and 8.4, resolving XML external entities has been disabled for all use cases to protect against this vulnerability. Gradle will now refuse to parse XML files that have XML external entities.",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2023-42445",
    "products": [],
    "severity": "medium",
    "structured": {
      "id": "CVE-2023-42445",
      "aliases": [
        "BIT-gradle-2023-42445",
        "CVE-2023-42445",
        "GHSA-mrff-q8qj-xvg8"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "repo": "https://github.com/gradle/gradle",
              "type": "GIT",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "0"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "1694251d59e0d4752d547e1fd5b5020b798a7e71"
                },
                {
                  "introduced": "62ab9b7c7f884426cf79fbedcf07658b2dbe9e97"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "e9251e572c9bd1d01e503a0dfdf43aedaeecdc3f"
                }
              ],
              "database_specific": {
                "extracted_events": [
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:gradle:gradle:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "7.6.3"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  },
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:gradle:gradle:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "8.0.0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "8.4.0"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  },
                  {
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "fixed": "1694251d59e0d4752d547e1fd5b5020b798a7e71"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "REFERENCES_TAG",
                    "original_tag": "v7.6.3"
                  },
                  {
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "fixed": "e9251e572c9bd1d01e503a0dfdf43aedaeecdc3f"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "REFERENCES_TAG",
                    "original_tag": "v8.4.0"
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "versions": [
            "v8.3.0",
            "v8.4.0-RC3",
            "v8.4.0-RC2",
            "v8.4.0-RC1",
            "v8.3.0-RC4",
            "v8.3.0-RC3",
            "v8.3.0-RC2",
            "v8.3.0-RC1",
            "v7.6.2",
            "v7.6.1",
            "v7.6.0",
            "v7.6.0-RC4",
            "v7.6.0-RC3",
            "v7.6.0-RC2",
            "v7.6.0-RC1",
            "v8.0.0-M2",
            "v7.0.0-M3",
            "v7.0.0-M2",
            "v7.0.0-M1",
            "v6.8.0-M3",
            "v6.8.0-M2",
            "v6.8.0-M1",
            "v6.6.0-M2",
            "v6.6.0-M1",
            "v6.5.0-M2",
            "v6.5.0-M1",
            "v6.1.0-M2",
            "v6.1.0-M1",
            "v3.0.0-M1",
            "REL_3.0-milestone-1",
            "v1.12.0-RC2",
            "v1.12.0",
            "v1.12-RC2",
            "v1.12",
            "REL_1.12-rc-2",
            "REL_1.12",
            "v1.12.0-RC1",
            "v1.12-RC1",
            "REL_1.12-rc-1",
            "v1.11.0",
            "v1.11",
            "REL_1.11",
            "v1.11.0-RC1",
            "v1.11-RC1",
            "REL_1.11-rc-1",
            "v1.0.0-M3",
            "v1.0-M3",
            "REL_1.0-milestone-3",
            "v1.0.0-M2",
            "v1.0-M2",
            "REL_1.0-milestone-2",
            "v1.0.0-M1",
            "v1.0-M1",
            "REL_1.0-milestone-1",
            "v0.9.2",
            "REL_0.9.2",
            "v0.9.1",
            "REL_0.9.1",
            "v0.9.0",
            "v0.9",
            "REL_0.9",
            "v0.9.0-RC3",
            "v0.9-RC3",
            "REL_0.9-rc-3",
            "v0.9.0-RC2",
            "v0.9-RC2",
            "REL_0.9-rc-2",
            "v0.9.0-RC1",
            "v0.9-RC1",
            "REL-0.9-rc-1",
            "REL-0.9-preview-3",
            "REL-0.9-preview-2",
            "REL-0.9-preview-1",
            "v0.8.0",
            "v0.8",
            "REL-0.8"
          ],
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2023-42445.json"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-28T02:30:52.923258917Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://github.com/gradle/gradle/releases/tag/v7.6.3",
        "https://github.com/gradle/gradle/releases/tag/v8.4.0",
        "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2023/42xxx/CVE-2023-42445.json",
        "https://github.com/gradle/gradle/security/advisories/GHSA-mrff-q8qj-xvg8",
        "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-42445",
        "https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20231110-0006/"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {
        "cwe_ids": [
          "CWE-611"
        ],
        "cna_assigner": "GitHub_M",
        "osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2023/42xxx/CVE-2023-42445.json"
      }
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2023-42445",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 521625,
  "published_at": "2023-10-06T13:52:02.982+00:00"
}