A critical vulnerability, CVE-2025-30220, has been identified in GeoServer’s Web Feature Service (WFS), impacting versions 2.27.0, 2.26.0 through 2.26.2, and all versions up to 2.25.6. The flaw originates from the underlying GeoTools library (gt-xsd-core), which mishandles XML parsing by bypassing the intended AllowListEntityResolver. This allows unauthenticated attackers to submit specially crafted XML payloads containing external entity definitions, leading to XML External Entity (XXE) injection. The vulnerability enables remote, unauthenticated exploitation that compromises confidentiality and internal network isolation. The issue also affects dependent systems such as GeoNetwork and the GeoTools WFS-NG datastore. Patched versions have been released for GeoServer (2.27.1, 2.26.3, 2.25.7), GeoTools (33.1, 32.3, 31.7, 28.6.1), and GeoNetwork (4.4.8, 4.2.13). The IONIX research team confirmed the vulnerability and validated the risk through successful exploit reproduction, as detailed in this advisory.
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