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MEDIUM

CVE-2025-53621

CVE-2025-53621 — DSpace vulnerable to XML External Entity (XXE) injection in import via Simple Archive Format (SAF) or import from external sources

DSpace open source software is a repository application which provides durable access to digital resources. Two related XML External Entity (XXE) injection possibilities impact all versions of DSpace prior to 7.6.4, 8.2, and 9.1. External entities are not disabled when parsing XML files during import of an archive (in Simple Archive Format), either from command-line (`./dspace import` command) or from the "Batch Import (Zip)" user interface feature. External entities are also not explicitly disabled when parsing XML responses from some upstream services (ArXiv, Crossref, OpenAIRE, Creative Commons) used in import from external sources via the user interface or REST API. An XXE injection in these files may result in a connection being made to an attacker's site or a local path readable by the Tomcat user, with content potentially being injected into a metadata field. In the latter case…

Published Updated Sources: cvelistV5, GitHub_M

Triage

Is it exploited, how likely is exploitation, what does it touch, and how severe do the scoring sources call it.

Exploitation

Unreported

no source claims exploitation

EPSS

0%

chance of exploitation in 30 days

Affects

dspace

dspace

CVSS base

6.9

MEDIUM

CISA SSVC assessment

Three decision points CISA publishes for the CVEs it assesses · SSVC 2.0.3. A stakeholder decision, not a severity score.

CISA

Exploitation

None

none · proof-of-concept · active

Automatable

No

can an attacker script all four kill-chain steps

Technical impact

Partial

partial · total control of the vulnerable component

Affected scope

The catalog records vendors and products as separate lists, not pairs, so which product belongs to which vendor is not something this page can say.

Vendors (1)

dspace

Products (1)

dspace

Every base score collected

Sources score independently and disagree; each row says who scored it and under which version.

ScoreVersionSeverityExpl.ImpactSource
6.9CVSS 3.1MEDIUM——cvelistV5

Weakness & attack patterns

  • CWE-611

Detection

Read off the CVSS vector and the weakness class. Starting points, not rules we have tested.

  • Search application, proxy, and WAF logs for requests touching /dspace.

References

7 on the record

Elsewhere on this site

  • dspaceevery CVE for this vendor
  • CWE-611other pages naming this weakness

Not in any source we poll

Listed rather than left blank: an empty field and an unmeasured one look identical on screen, and only one is a reason to look elsewhere.

  • No confirmed IOCs, IP addresses, domains, file hashes, or malware artifacts supplied.
  • No organization-specific asset inventory, compensating-control status, or patch deployment evidence supplied.
  • No exploit packet captures, log samples, or incident case IDs supplied.