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Critical severityNVD Advisory· Published Aug 20, 2025· Updated Feb 26, 2026

Apache Tika PDF parser module: XXE vulnerability in PDFParser's handling of XFA

CVE-2025-54988

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. 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.

AI Insight

LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.

Critical XXE vulnerability in Apache Tika's tika-parser-pdf-module allows reading sensitive data via crafted XFA file in PDF; update to 3.2.2.

CVE-2025-54988 is a critical XML External Entity (XXE) injection vulnerability in the Apache Tika PDF parser module (tika-parser-pdf-module). The flaw arises from improper handling of XFA (XML Forms Architecture) files embedded within PDFs, allowing an attacker to define malicious external entities that the parser processes without restriction [4].

Exploitation requires only a crafted PDF containing a malicious XFA file; no authentication is needed if the parser processes user-supplied documents. The XXE can be used to read arbitrary files from the server's filesystem (e.g., configuration files, credentials) or to send HTTP requests to internal resources or third-party servers (SSRF) [4]. The vulnerable module is included in multiple Tika packages—such as tika-parsers-standard-modules, tika-app, and tika-server—widening the potential attack surface.

The impact includes sensitive data exfiltration and potential pivoting to internal networks via SSRF. As a fix, Apache Tika 3.2.2 (released 2025-08-06) resolves the issue [1]. Users on versions 1.13 through 3.2.1 should upgrade immediately; no workarounds are documented.

References
  1. https://archive.apache.org/dist/tika/3.2.2/CHANGES-3.2.2.txt
  2. NVD - CVE-2025-54988

AI Insight generated on May 19, 2026. Synthesized from this CVE's description and the cited reference URLs; citations are validated against the source bundle.

Affected packages

Versions sourced from the GitHub Security Advisory.

PackageAffected versionsPatched versions
org.apache.tika:tika-parser-pdf-moduleMaven
>= 1.13, < 3.2.23.2.2
org.apache.tika:tika-parsersMaven
>= 1.13, < 2.0.0-ALPHA2.0.0-ALPHA

Affected products

2
  • Apache/Tikallm-fuzzy
    Range: >=1.13 <=3.2.1
  • Apache Software Foundation/Apache Tika PDF parser modulev5
    Range: 1.13

Patches

1
2b52257304f4

TIKA-4459 -- force stream to zip file to handle encrypted od* documents correctly (#2291)

https://github.com/apache/tikaTim AllisonJul 31, 2025via ghsa
commit
2 files changed · +20 −52
  • tika-parsers/tika-parsers-standard/tika-parsers-standard-modules/tika-parser-miscoffice-module/src/main/java/org/apache/tika/parser/odf/OpenDocumentParser.java+13 −52 modified
    @@ -20,16 +20,13 @@
 
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
-import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.Collections;
 import java.util.Enumeration;
 import java.util.HashSet;
-import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Set;
 import java.util.zip.ZipEntry;
 import java.util.zip.ZipFile;
-import java.util.zip.ZipInputStream;
 
 import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
 import org.apache.commons.io.input.CloseShieldInputStream;
@@ -40,7 +37,6 @@
 import org.apache.tika.config.Field;
 import org.apache.tika.exception.EncryptedDocumentException;
 import org.apache.tika.exception.TikaException;
-import org.apache.tika.exception.WriteLimitReachedException;
 import org.apache.tika.extractor.EmbeddedDocumentUtil;
 import org.apache.tika.io.TikaInputStream;
 import org.apache.tika.metadata.Metadata;
@@ -134,21 +130,21 @@ public void parse(InputStream stream, ContentHandler baseHandler, Metadata metad
         // Open the Zip stream
         // Use a File if we can, and an already open zip is even better
         ZipFile zipFile = null;
-        ZipInputStream zipStream = null;
+        TikaInputStream tmpTis = null;
         if (stream instanceof TikaInputStream) {
             TikaInputStream tis = (TikaInputStream) stream;
             Object container = ((TikaInputStream) stream).getOpenContainer();
             if (container instanceof ZipFile) {
                 zipFile = (ZipFile) container;
-            } else if (tis.hasFile()) {
-                zipFile = new ZipFile(tis.getFile());
             } else {
-                zipStream = new ZipInputStream(stream);
+                zipFile = new ZipFile(tis.getFile());
+                tis.setOpenContainer(zipFile);
             }
         } else {
-            zipStream = new ZipInputStream(stream);
+            tmpTis = TikaInputStream.get(stream);
+            tmpTis.setOpenContainer(new ZipFile(tmpTis.getFile()));
+            zipFile = (ZipFile) tmpTis.getOpenContainer();
         }
-
         // Prepare to handle the content
         XHTMLContentHandler xhtml = new XHTMLContentHandler(baseHandler, metadata);
         xhtml.startDocument();
@@ -157,19 +153,13 @@ public void parse(InputStream stream, ContentHandler baseHandler, Metadata metad
         EndDocumentShieldingContentHandler handler = new EndDocumentShieldingContentHandler(xhtml);
 
         try {
-            if (zipFile != null) {
-                try {
-                    handleZipFile(zipFile, metadata, context, handler, embeddedDocumentUtil);
-                } finally {
-                    //Do we want to close silently == catch an exception here?
-                    zipFile.close();
-                }
-            } else {
-                try {
-                    handleZipStream(zipStream, metadata, context, handler, embeddedDocumentUtil);
-                } finally {
-                    //Do we want to close silently == catch an exception here?
-                    zipStream.close();
+            try {
+                handleZipFile(zipFile, metadata, context, handler, embeddedDocumentUtil);
+            } finally {
+                //Do we want to close silently == catch an exception here?
+                if (tmpTis != null) {
+                    //tmpTis handles closing of the open zip container
+                    tmpTis.close();
                 }
             }
         } catch (SAXException e) {
@@ -194,35 +184,6 @@ public boolean isExtractMacros() {
         return extractMacros;
     }
 
-    private void handleZipStream(ZipInputStream zipStream, Metadata metadata, ParseContext context,
-                                 EndDocumentShieldingContentHandler handler,
-                                 EmbeddedDocumentUtil embeddedDocumentUtil)
-            throws IOException, TikaException, SAXException {
-        ZipEntry entry = zipStream.getNextEntry();
-        if (entry == null) {
-            throw new IOException("No entries found in ZipInputStream");
-        }
-        List<SAXException> exceptions = new ArrayList<>();
-        do {
-            try {
-                handleZipEntry(entry, zipStream, metadata, context, handler,
-                        embeddedDocumentUtil);
-            } catch (SAXException e) {
-                WriteLimitReachedException.throwIfWriteLimitReached(e);
-                if (e.getCause() instanceof EncryptedDocumentException) {
-                    throw (EncryptedDocumentException)e.getCause();
-                } else {
-                    exceptions.add(e);
-                }
-            }
-            entry = zipStream.getNextEntry();
-        } while (entry != null);
-
-        if (exceptions.size() > 0) {
-            throw exceptions.get(0);
-        }
-    }
-
     private void handleZipFile(ZipFile zipFile, Metadata metadata, ParseContext context,
                                EndDocumentShieldingContentHandler handler,
                                EmbeddedDocumentUtil embeddedDocumentUtil)
  • tika-parsers/tika-parsers-standard/tika-parsers-standard-modules/tika-parser-miscoffice-module/src/test/java/org/apache/tika/parser/odf/ODFParserTest.java+7 −0 modified
    @@ -25,6 +25,7 @@
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+import java.nio.file.Files;
 import java.nio.file.Path;
 import java.nio.file.Paths;
 import java.util.Arrays;
@@ -415,6 +416,12 @@ public void testEncryptedODTFile() throws Exception {
             getRecursiveMetadata(p, false);
         });
 
+        assertThrows(EncryptedDocumentException.class, () -> {
+            try (InputStream is = Files.newInputStream(p)) {
+                getRecursiveMetadata(is, false);
+            }
+        });
+
         List<Metadata> metadataList = getRecursiveMetadata(p, true);
         assertEquals("true", metadataList.get(0).get(TikaCoreProperties.IS_ENCRYPTED));
     }

Vulnerability mechanics

Generated on May 9, 2026. Inputs: CWE entries + fix-commit diffs from this CVE's patches. Citations validated against bundle.

References

11

News mentions

0

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