Security

The Apache Log4j Security Team takes security seriously. This allows our users to place their trust in Log4j for protecting their mission-critical data. In this page we will help you find guidance on security-related issues and access to known vulnerabilities.

Warning

Log4j 1 has reached End of Life in 2015, and is no longer supported. Vulnerabilities reported after August 2015 against Log4j 1 are not checked and will not be fixed. Users should upgrade to Log4j 2 to obtain security fixes.

Getting support

If you need help on building or configuring Log4j or other help on following the instructions to mitigate the known vulnerabilities listed here, please use our user support channels.

Tip

If you need to apply a source code patch, use the building instructions for the Log4j version that you are using. These instructions can be found in BUILDING.adoc distributed with the sources.

Reporting vulnerabilities

If you have encountered an unlisted security vulnerability or other unexpected behaviour that has a security impact, or if the descriptions here are incomplete, please report them privately to the Log4j Security Team.

Warning

The threat model that Log4j uses considers configuration files as safe input controlled by the programmer; potential vulnerabilities that require the ability to modify a configuration are not considered vulnerabilities as the required access to do so implies the attacker can execute arbitrary code.

Vulnerability handling policy

The Apache Log4j Security Team follows the ASF Project Security guide for handling security vulnerabilities.

Reported security vulnerabilities are subject to voting (by means of lazy approval, preferably) in the private security mailing list before creating a CVE and populating its associated content. This procedure involves only the creation of CVEs and blocks neither (vulnerability) fixes, nor releases.

Vulnerability Disclosure Report (VDR)

Starting with version 2.22.0, Log4j distributes CycloneDX Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) along with each deployed artifact. Produced SBOMs contain BOM-links referring to a CycloneDX Vulnerability Disclosure Report (VDR) that Apache Logging Services uses for all projects it maintains. All this is streamlined by logging-parent, see its website for details.

Known vulnerabilities

The Log4j Security Team believes that accuracy, completeness and availability of security information is essential for our users. We choose to pool all information on this one page, allowing easy searching for security vulnerabilities over a range of criteria.

Note

We adhere to the Maven version range syntax while sharing versions of affected components. We only extend this mathematical notation with set union operator (i.e., ) to denote union of multiple ranges.

CVE-2021-44832

Summary

JDBC appender is vulnerable to remote code execution in certain configurations

CVSS 3.x Score & Vector

6.6 MEDIUM (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)

Components affected

log4j-core

Versions affected

[2.0-beta7, 2.3.2) ∪ [2.4, 2.12.4) ∪ [2.13.0, 2.17.1)

Versions fixed

2.3.2 (for Java 6), 2.12.4 (for Java 7), or 2.17.1 (for Java 8 and later)

Description

An attacker with write access to the logging configuration can construct a malicious configuration using a JDBC Appender with a data source referencing a JNDI URI which can execute remote code. This issue is fixed by limiting JNDI data source names to the java protocol.

Mitigation

Upgrade to 2.3.2 (for Java 6), 2.12.4 (for Java 7), or 2.17.1 (for Java 8 and later).

In prior releases confirm that if the JDBC Appender is being used it is not configured to use any protocol other than java.

References

CVE-2021-45105

Summary

Infinite recursion in lookup evaluation

CVSS 3.x Score & Vector

5.9 MEDIUM (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

Components affected

log4j-core

Versions affected

[2.0-alpha1, 2.3.1) ∪ [2.4, 2.12.3) ∪ [2.13.0, 2.17.0)

Versions fixed

2.3.1 (for Java 6), 2.12.3 (for Java 7), and 2.17.0 (for Java 8 and later)

Description

Log4j versions 2.0-alpha1 through 2.16.0 (excluding 2.3.1 and 2.12.3), did not protect from uncontrolled recursion that can be implemented using self-referential lookups. When the logging configuration uses a non-default Pattern Layout with a Context Lookup (for example, $${ctx:loginId}), attackers with control over Thread Context Map (MDC) input data can craft malicious input data that contains a recursive lookup, resulting in a StackOverflowError that will terminate the process. This is also known as a DoS (Denial-of-Service) attack.

Mitigation

Upgrade to 2.3.1 (for Java 6), 2.12.3 (for Java 7), or 2.17.0 (for Java 8 and later).

Alternatively, this infinite recursion issue can be mitigated in configuration:

  • In PatternLayout in the logging configuration, replace Context Lookups like ${ctx:loginId} or $${ctx:loginId} with Thread Context Map patterns (%X, %mdc, or %MDC).

  • Otherwise, in the configuration, remove references to Context Lookups like ${ctx:loginId} or $${ctx:loginId} where they originate from sources external to the application such as HTTP headers or user input. Note that this mitigation is insufficient in releases older than 2.12.2 (for Java 7), and 2.16.0 (for Java 8 and later) as the issues fixed in those releases will still be present.

Note that only the log4j-core JAR file is impacted by this vulnerability. Applications using only the log4j-api JAR file without the log4j-core JAR file are not impacted by this vulnerability.

Credits

Independently discovered by Hideki Okamoto of Akamai Technologies, Guy Lederfein of Trend Micro Research working with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative, and another anonymous vulnerability researcher.

CVE-2021-45046

Summary

Thread Context Lookup is vulnerable to remote code execution in certain configurations

CVSS 3.x Score & Vector

9.0 CRITICAL (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H)

Components affected

log4j-core

Versions affected

[2.0-beta9, 2.3.1) ∪ [2.4, 2.12.3) ∪ [2.13.0, 2.17.0)

Versions fixed

2.3.1 (for Java 6), 2.12.3 (for Java 7), and 2.17.0 (for Java 8 and later)

Description

It was found that the fix to address CVE-2021-44228 in Log4j 2.15.0 was incomplete in certain non-default configurations. When the logging configuration uses a non-default Pattern Layout with a Thread Context Lookup (for example, $${ctx:loginId}), attackers with control over Thread Context Map (MDC) can craft malicious input data using a JNDI Lookup pattern, resulting in an information leak and remote code execution in some environments and local code execution in all environments. Remote code execution has been demonstrated on macOS, Fedora, Arch Linux, and Alpine Linux.

Note that this vulnerability is not limited to just the JNDI lookup. Any other Lookup could also be included in a Thread Context Map variable and possibly have private details exposed to anyone with access to the logs.

Note that only the log4j-core JAR file is impacted by this vulnerability. Applications using only the log4j-api JAR file without the log4j-core JAR file are not impacted by this vulnerability.

Mitigation

Upgrade to Log4j 2.3.1 (for Java 6), 2.12.3 (for Java 7), or 2.17.0 (for Java 8 and later).

Credits

This issue was discovered by Kai Mindermann of iC Consult and separately by 4ra1n.

Additional vulnerability details discovered independently by Ash Fox of Google, Alvaro Muñoz and Tony Torralba from GitHub, Anthony Weems of Praetorian, and RyotaK (@ryotkak).

CVE-2021-44228

Summary

JNDI lookup can be exploited to execute arbitrary code loaded from an LDAP server

CVSS 3.x Score & Vector

10.0 CRITICAL (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H)

Components affected

log4j-core

Versions affected

[2.0-beta9, 2.3.1) ∪ [2.4, 2.12.3) ∪ [2.13.0, 2.17.0)

Versions fixed

2.3.1 (for Java 6), 2.12.3 (for Java 7), and 2.17.0 (for Java 8 and later)

Description

In Log4j, the JNDI features used in configurations, log messages, and parameters do not protect against attacker-controlled LDAP and other JNDI related endpoints. An attacker who can control log messages or log message parameters can execute arbitrary code loaded from LDAP servers.

Note that only the log4j-core JAR file is impacted by this vulnerability. Applications using only the log4j-api JAR file without the log4j-core JAR file are not impacted by this vulnerability.

Mitigation

Log4j 1 mitigation
Warning

Log4j 1 has reached End of Life in 2015, and is no longer supported. Vulnerabilities reported after August 2015 against Log4j 1 are not checked and will not be fixed. Users should upgrade to Log4j 2 to obtain security fixes.

Log4j 1 does not have Lookups, so the risk is lower. Applications using Log4j 1 are only vulnerable to this attack when they use JNDI in their configuration. A separate CVE (CVE-2021-4104) has been filed for this vulnerability. To mitigate, audit your logging configuration to ensure it has no JMSAppender configured. Log4j 1 configurations without JMSAppender are not impacted by this vulnerability.

Log4j 2 mitigation

Upgrade to Log4j 2.3.1 (for Java 6), 2.12.3 (for Java 7), or 2.17.0 (for Java 8 and later).

Credits

This issue was discovered by Chen Zhaojun of Alibaba Cloud Security Team.

CVE-2020-9488

Summary

Improper validation of certificate with host mismatch in SMTP appender

CVSS 3.x Score & Vector

3.7 LOW (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)

Components affected

log4j-core

Versions affected

[2.0-beta1, 2.12.3) ∪ [2.13.1, 2.13.2)

Versions fixed

2.12.3 (Java 7) and 2.13.2 (Java 8 and later)

Description

Improper validation of certificate with host mismatch in SMTP appender. This could allow an SMTPS connection to be intercepted by a man-in-the-middle attack which could leak any log messages sent through that appender.

The reported issue was caused by an error in SslConfiguration. Any element using SslConfiguration in the Log4j Configuration is also affected by this issue. This includes HttpAppender, SocketAppender, and SyslogAppender. Usages of SslConfiguration that are configured via system properties are not affected.

Mitigation

Upgrade to 2.12.3 (Java 7) or 2.13.2 (Java 8 and later).

Alternatively, users can set the mail.smtp.ssl.checkserveridentity system property to true to enable SMTPS hostname verification for all SMTPS mail sessions.

Credits

This issue was discovered by Peter Stöckli.

CVE-2017-5645

Summary

TCP/UDP socket servers can be exploited to execute arbitrary code

CVSS 2.0 Score & Vector

7.5 HIGH (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P)

Components affected

log4j-core

Versions affected

[2.0-alpha1, 2.8.2)

Versions fixed

2.8.2 (Java 7)

Description

When using the TCP socket server or UDP socket server to receive serialized log events from another application, a specially crafted binary payload can be sent that, when deserialized, can execute arbitrary code.

Mitigation

Java 7 and above users should migrate to version 2.8.2 or avoid using the socket server classes. Java 6 users should avoid using the TCP or UDP socket server classes, or they can manually backport the security fix commit from 2.8.2.

Credits

This issue was discovered by Marcio Almeida de Macedo of Red Team at Telstra.