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Apache Axis2/Java XML External Entity Reference and SSRF Vulnerabilities

  1. Investigating(current)
  2. Trending(upcoming)
  3. Workaround available(upcoming)
  4. Resolved(upcoming)

Executive summary

Critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-120761 and CVE-2026-120832) affect Apache Axis2/Java. These flaws allow an attacker controlling a WSDL or imported documents to read arbitrary files via external entity processing (XXE) and trigger Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) through unrestricted import locations.

No verified workaround yet

None of the linked reports describe a mitigation. Follow this incident to hear when one appears.

Official fix
Technical root cause

wsdl4j import resolution allowed parsing of DOCTYPE declarations and external entities, and Axis2 built service descriptions from WSDLs by fetching absolute URLs in import locations with no scheme or host restrictions.

Evidence

3 reports · 3 CVEShow
  1. [1]
    CVE First report
    Apache Axis2/Java.: CVE-2026-120761 (Critical)(opens security advisory in a new tab)

    Critical severity. Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference vulnerability in Apache Axis2/Java. When a client built an AxisService from a WSDL URL, through ServiceClient or AxisService.createClientSideAxisService, wsdl4j import resolution was enabled and the documents named by wsdl:import and xsd:import were parsed by wsdl4j's own XML parser, which processes DOCTYPE declarations and external entities. An attacker who controls a WSDL, or a document it imports, could therefore read…

    by Tenable 0upvotes 0comments

  2. [2]
    CVE
    Apache Axis2/Java.: CVE-2026-120832 (Critical)(opens security advisory in a new tab)

    Critical severity. Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in Apache Axis2/Java. When Axis2 built a service description from a WSDL, through ServiceClient, AxisService.createClientSideAxisService or WSDLToAxisServiceBuilder, it fetched the absolute URLs in wsdl:import locations and in xsd:import and xsd:include schemaLocations with no scheme or host restriction; the AAR and WAR deployment resolvers also passed absolute schema locations on to the network. An attacker who controls a…

    by Tenable 0upvotes 0comments95% match

  3. [3]
    CVE
    Apache Axis2/Java.: CVE-2026-123753 (Critical)(opens security advisory in a new tab)

    Critical severity. Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in Apache Axis2/Java. An unauthenticated caller could supply a non-anonymous WS-Addressing wsa:ReplyTo or wsa:FaultTo address, and Axis2 would open a connection to that address to deliver the response or fault, allowing requests to internal hosts and delivery of response content to a host of the caller's choosing. From 2.0.2, decoupled responses are refused unless allowNonAnonymousResponseEndpoints is enabled, and enabled…

    by Tenable 0upvotes 0comments94% match

Timeline

  1. First report on security advisory

    Apache Axis2/Java.: CVE-2026-120761 (Critical)

    Source