Overview
Spring Framework is a comprehensive Java framework for building enterprise-level applications. It provides a powerful, flexible programming model that simplifies the development of web applications by allowing you to use Java as your primary language while offering a variety of tools to manage application configuration, data access, and security.
A possible Path Traversal vulnerability (CVE-2025-41242) has been identified in Spring Framework’s MVC support for servlet containers that are incorrectly configured.
A Path Traversal vulnerability occurs when an attacker is able to manipulate file or directory paths in an application to gain unauthorized access to files or directories outside the intended directory. This typically happens when user input is not properly sanitized or validated, allowing attackers to use sequences like ../ to navigate the file system. The implications of a Path Traversal vulnerability are severe, as it can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive files, data leakage, system compromise, or further exploitation of the system, depending on the application’s privileges and access controls.
This issue affects multiple versions of Spring Framework’s spring-beans package.
Details
Module Info
- Product: Spring Framework
- Affected packages: spring-beans
- Affected versions: >=4.3.0 <=4.3.30, >=5.3.0 <=5.3.43, >=6.0.0 <=6.0.29, >=6.1.0 <=6.1.21, >=6.2.0 <=6.2.9
- GitHub repository: https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework
- Published packages: https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/org.springframework/spring-beans
- Package manager: Maven
- Fixed In: NES for Spring Framework v4.3.35, v5.3.47, v6.1.23
Vulnerability Info
The security flaw applies to Spring Framework MVC applications when specific deployment and configuration conditions align. This vulnerability enables attackers to bypass intended access controls and retrieve files from unauthorized filesystem locations through crafted HTTP requests targeting static resource endpoints.
The security flaw manifests one the following conditions occur:
- Application deployment uses WAR packaging or embedded Servlet containers (such as Tomcat or Jetty)
- The underlying servlet container lacks the proper validation of malicious path sequences
- Static resources are served using Spring’s resource handling
Important Note: Default installations of Apache Tomcat and Eclipse Jetty include protective measures that prevent exploitation, provided administrators have not modified standard security configurations. Applications using Spring Boot have many of these security features enabled by default.
Mitigation
Only recent versions of Spring Framework are community-supported. Only the recent community supported version will receive updates to address this issue. For more information, see here.
Users of the affected components should apply one of the following mitigations:
- Upgrade affected applications to supported versions of Spring Framework
- Ensure servlet container security features remain at default settings to maintain existing protections.
- If applicable, thoroughly review any configuration of the embedded Servlet container in your application for any changes that may impact the standard standard URI path canonicalization process in the newer Servlet 6 specification for Tomcat, Jetty, etc
- Leverage a commercial support partner like HeroDevs for post-EOL security support.
Credit
- 1ue and b1u3r from Vidar-Team, and Joakim Erdfelt from Webtide
