CVE-2026-88901Apache Camel: Camel-Smooks XML External Entity Processing, external entities resolved by default
- 8.2HighCVSS base score
- 0.45%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 60% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference vulnerability in Apache Camel. This issue affects Apache Camel: from 4.7.0 before 4.18.5, from 4.19.0 before 4.22.1. Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference in the Smooks component (camel-smooks) in Apache Camel allows an attacker who supplies the XML message body to read local files or issue requests to internal network locations via an external entity declaration in that body. This issue affects Apache Camel: from 4.7.0 before 4.18.5, from 4.19.0 before 4.22.1. The Smooks data format (.unmarshal().smooks(...)) and the Smooks component (smooks:) parse the incoming XML body with the reader Smooks resolves by default, which is the Woodstox SAX parser. That reader resolves external general and parameter entities and loads external DTDs, and camel-smooks applied none of the parser hardening that the other Camel XML components apply. A DOCTYPE with an external subset, or an external general entity, declared in the XML document is therefore resolved and expanded while the body is unmarshalled, and the resolved content is bound into the unmarshalled result and returned on InOut routes. An external sender whose XML reaches a camel-smooks data format or endpoint could therefore read files readable by the Camel process and cause the process to issue requests to hosts the document names. No non-default option is required, since resolving external entities was the default behaviour. Configurations that declare their own reader - EDI, CSV, JSON, or a custom reader - do not use the XML reader and are not affected. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 4.18.5, 4.22.1 or 4.23.0, which fixes the issue. Upgrade to Apache Camel 4.23.0, which fixes the issue. Users on the 4.18.x LTS releases stream should upgrade to 4.18.5. Users on the 4.22.x LTS releases stream should upgrade to 4.22.1. camel-smooks now parses the XML body with a javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder that does not resolve external general or parameter entities and does not load external DTDs, and hands Smooks the resulting document, matching the secure XML processing configuration used by org.apache.camel.converter.jaxp.XmlConverter and the other Camel XML components. This hardening is applied only when the Smooks configuration parses XML with its default reader, so EDI, CSV, JSON and custom-reader configurations, and the marshalling direction, are unchanged. A new allowExternalEntities option, disabled by default, restores the previous behaviour for trusted legacy configurations that rely on external entity resolution. The camel-4.14.x releases stream and earlier reached end of life before this issue was resolved and will not receive a fix, so deployments on those lines must move to a supported release. For deployments that cannot upgrade immediately, do not apply camel-smooks to XML received from untrusted senders.
Timeline
ID reserved
By apache
- 39 days later
· 39 days later
Published
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| apacheCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High8.2 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:L |
| NVDNVD · Undergoing Analysis | 3.1 | High8.2 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:L |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.45% · top 60% of all CVEs (14 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 8.2.
Affected products
Apache Software Foundation · Apache Camel
- affected 4.7.0 – < 4.18.5
- affected 4.19.0 – < 4.22.1
What to do
Solution: Upgrade to Apache Camel 4.23.0, which fixes the issue. Users on the 4.18.x LTS releases stream should upgrade to 4.18.5. Users on the 4.22.x LTS releases stream should upgrade to 4.22.1. camel-smooks now parses the XML body with a javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder that does not resolve external general or parameter entities and does not load external DTDs, and hands Smooks the resulting document, matching the secure XML processing configuration used by org.apache.camel.converter.jaxp.XmlConverter and the other Camel XML components. This hardening is applied only when the Smooks configuration parses XML with its default reader, so EDI, CSV, JSON and custom-reader configurations, and the marshalling direction, are unchanged. A new allowExternalEntities option, disabled by default, restores the previous behaviour for trusted legacy configurations that rely on external entity resolution. The camel-4.14.x releases stream and earlier reached end of life before this issue was resolved and will not receive a fix, so deployments on those lines must move to a supported release. For deployments that cannot upgrade immediately, do not apply camel-smooks to XML received from untrusted senders.
Workaround: Do not apply the Smooks data format or the Smooks component to XML received from untrusted senders. The camel-4.14.x releases stream and earlier reached end of life before this issue was resolved and will not receive a fix, so deployments on those lines must move to a supported release.
References
References5
- Apache Camel Security Advisory - CVE-2026-88901 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisory
- CAMEL-24677 (opens in a new tab)issue-tracking
- Fix on main for 4.23.0 (commit 4b1fc499a0ceff909612b5310152cd71517888f7) (opens in a new tab)patch
- Backport to camel-4.22.x for 4.22.1 (commit 1b375c171e2546cafdcaadc2aa9f7346a25a4cd7) (opens in a new tab)patch
- Backport to camel-4.18.x for 4.18.5 (commit 680290f6ba5324301673b7353564130af6d2ad83) (opens in a new tab)patch
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-104206 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-88901)Record last updated .