When running on Windows with enableCmdLineArguments enabled, the CGI Servlet in Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.17, 8.5.0 to 8.5.39 and 7.0.0

Summary

When running on Windows with enableCmdLineArguments enabled, the CGI Servlet in Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.17, 8.5.0 to 8.5.39 and 7.0.0 to 7.0.93 is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution due to a bug in the way the JRE passes command line arguments to Windows. The CGI Servlet is disabled by default. The CGI option enableCmdLineArguments is disable by default in Tomcat 9.0.x (and will be disabled by default in all versions in response to this vulnerability). For a detailed explanation of the JRE behaviour, see Markus Wulftange's blog (https://codewhitesec.blogspot.com/2016/02/java-and-command-line-injections-in-windows.html) and this archived MSDN blog (https://web.archive.org/web/20161228144344/https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/twistylittlepassagesallalike/2011/04/23/everyone-quotes-command-line-arguments-the-wrong-way/).

Timeline

1. Apr 15, 2019, 2:23 PM UTCCVE published
2. Jul 3, 2019Public exploit on Exploit-DB

   EDB-47073

3. Aug 4, 2024, 5:44 PM UTCRecord last updated
4. Oct 28, 2026EPSS reached 10%

   FIRST estimates at least a 10% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days

Affected versions

• Apache Tomcat

  9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.17, 8.5.0 to 8.5.39, 7.0.0 to 7.0.93

• org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-coreMaven

  From 9.0.0.M1 · fixed in 9.0.17

• org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-coreMaven

  From 8.0.0 · fixed in 8.5.40

• org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-coreMaven

  From 7.0.0 · fixed in 7.0.94

References 43