CVE-2009-0580 Exposure of Sensitive Information in Apache Tomcat

What is CVE-2009-0580?

CVE-2009-0580 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Apache Tomcat, published on 5 Jun 2009. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Apache Tomcat 4.1.0 through 4.1.39, 5.5.0 through 5.5.27, and 6.0.0 through 6.0.18, when FORM authentication is used, allows remote attackers to enumerate valid usernames via requests to /j_security_check with malformed URL encoding of passwords, related to improper error checking in the (1) MemoryRealm, (2) DataSourceRealm, and (3) JDBCRealm authentication realms, as demonstrated by a % (percent) value for the j_password parameter.

Weakness: CWE-200

Which versions are affected by CVE-2009-0580?

6 open source packages ship an affected version, including org.apache.tomcat:tomcat. It affects 1 product.

Products include Apache Tomcat.

How do I fix CVE-2009-0580?

Upgrade org.apache.tomcat:tomcat to a fixed version for your release line: 4.1.40, 5.5.28 or 6.0.19.

Is CVE-2009-0580 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2009-0580 exists.

Public exploit code: 1 Metasploit module and 1 Exploit-DB entry.

Other vulnerabilities in Apache Tomcat

• CVE-2025-24813 Apache Tomcat Path Equivalence Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2016-8735 Apache Tomcat Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2017-12617 Apache Tomcat Remote Code Execution Exploited High 8.1
• CVE-2017-12615 Apache Tomcat on Windows Remote Code Execution Exploited High 8.1
• CVE-2026-34486 Apache Tomcat Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data Exploited High 7.5

All Apache Tomcat vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as GHSA-w227-xcfx-3pj8.