CVE-2023-42503: Commons compress Denial of Service Vulnerability
MODERATECVE-2023-42503 is a MODERATE (CVSS 5.5) denial of service vulnerability (CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) affecting Commons compress libraries in the Maven ecosystem. The issue involves apache commons compress denial of service vulnerability. Remediation is available by upgrading affected packages to version 1.24.0.
CVE-2023-42503 at a Glance
Security Impact
CVSS: 5.5
The security impact metrics below are parsed directly from the CVSS v3.1 vector string (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).
How to Fix CVE-2023-42503
To remediate this vulnerability, upgrade all affected Commons compress dependencies to a patched release. Both direct and transitive dependencies should be checked, as frameworks or security libraries may pull in vulnerable versions transitively.
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-compress</artifactId>
<version>1.24.0</version>
</dependency>
Run the following command in your project directory to verify that all resolved dependencies use the patched release:
mvn dependency:tree -Dincludes=org.apache.commons
How to Check if You Are Affected
To determine whether your Java application is affected by CVE-2023-42503, inspect your build dependencies using the Maven Dependency Plugin:
mvn dependency:tree -Dincludes=org.apache.commons
Analyze the terminal output to locate any version of Commons compress in your dependency tree. If any resolved version matches the vulnerable ranges listed in the table below (for example, versions earlier than 1.24.0), your application is affected.
Note: The mvn dependency:tree -Dincludes=org.apache.commons command inspects the resolved dependency graph declared in your project's POM files; it does not perform automated security scanning or inspect runtime dynamic classpaths. Always verify runtime container classpaths and shaded JARs.
Technical Details
Vulnerability Mechanism & Technical Analysis
This vulnerability is classified under CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption, where the product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource. In Commons compress, software state validation or input boundaries are circumvented during processing. Review the official source advisory statement below for specific affected components, classes, and reproduction details.
Source Advisory Statement
CVE-2023-42503 Affected Commons compress Versions
1 component(s)| Product / Package | Ecosystem | Affected Versions | Fixed Version |
|---|---|---|---|
|
org.apache.commons:commons-compress
|
Maven |
≥ 1.22
< 1.24.0
|
1.24.0
|
References
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2023-42503?
Which Commons compress versions are affected?
What version fixes CVE-2023-42503?
Is commons-compress affected?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2023-42503?
What CWE is associated with CVE-2023-42503?
How can I check Maven dependencies for CVE-2023-42503?
Machine-readable OSV JSON
OSV v1.5 Schema
{
"schema_version" : "1.4.0",
"id" : "GHSA-cgwf-w82q-5jrr",
"modified" : "2025-02-13T19:13:03Z",
"published" : "2023-09-14T09:30:28Z",
"aliases" : [ "CVE-2023-42503" ],
"summary" : "Apache Commons Compress denial of service vulnerability",
"details" : "Improper Input Validation, Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in Apache Commons Compress in TAR parsing.This issue affects Apache Commons Compress: from 1.22 before 1.24.0.\n\nUsers are recommended to upgrade to version 1.24.0, which fixes the issue.\n\nA third party can create a malformed TAR file by manipulating file modification times headers, which when parsed with Apache Commons Compress, will cause a denial of service issue via CPU consumption.\n\nIn version 1.22 of Apache Commons Compress, support was added for file modification times with higher precision (issue # COMPRESS-612 [1]). The format for the PAX extended headers carrying this data consists of two numbers separated by a period [2], indicating seconds and subsecond precision (for example “1647221103.5998539”). The impacted fields are “atime”, “ctime”, “mtime” and “LIBARCHIVE.creationtime”. No input validation is performed prior to the parsing of header values.\n\nParsing of these numbers uses the BigDecimal [3] class from the JDK which has a publicly known algorithmic complexity issue when doing operations on large numbers, causing denial of service (see issue # JDK-6560193 [4]). A third party can manipulate file time headers in a TAR file by placing a number with a very long fraction (300,000 digits) or a number with exponent notation (such as “9e9999999”) within a file modification time header, and the parsing of files with these headers will take hours instead of seconds, leading to a denial of service via exhaustion of CPU resources. This issue is similar to CVE-2012-2098 [5].\n\n[1]: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COMPRESS-612 \n[2]: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/pax.html#tag_20_92_13_05 \n[3]: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/math/BigDecimal.html \n[4]: https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-6560193 \n[5]: https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2012-2098 \n\nOnly applications using CompressorStreamFactory class (with auto-detection of file types), TarArchiveInputStream and TarFile classes to parse TAR files are impacted. Since this code was introduced in v1.22, only that version and later versions are impacted.",
"severity" : [ {
"type" : "CVSS_V3",
"score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"
} ],
"affected" : [ {
"package" : {
"ecosystem" : "Maven",
"name" : "org.apache.commons:commons-compress"
},
"ranges" : [ {
"type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
"events" : [ {
"introduced" : "1.22"
}, {
"fixed" : "1.24.0"
} ]
} ]
} ],
"references" : [ {
"type" : "ADVISORY",
"url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-42503"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://github.com/apache/commons-compress/commit/aae38bfb820159ae7a0b792e779571f6a46b3889"
}, {
"type" : "PACKAGE",
"url" : "https://github.com/apache/commons-compress"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://lists.apache.org/thread/5xwcyr600mn074vgxq92tjssrchmc93c"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20231020-0003"
} ],
"database_specific" : {
"cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-20", "CWE-400" ],
"severity" : "MODERATE",
"github_reviewed" : true,
"github_reviewed_at" : "2023-09-14T19:35:27Z",
"nvd_published_at" : "2023-09-14T08:15:08Z"
}
}