CVE-2011-5064 Use of Hard-coded Cryptographic Key in Apache Tomcat

What is CVE-2011-5064?

CVE-2011-5064 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Apache Tomcat, published on 14 Jan 2012. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

DigestAuthenticator.java in the HTTP Digest Access Authentication implementation in Apache Tomcat 5.5.x before 5.5.34, 6.x before 6.0.33, and 7.x before 7.0.12 uses Catalina as the hard-coded server secret (aka private key), which makes it easier for remote attackers to bypass cryptographic protection mechanisms by leveraging knowledge of this string, a different vulnerability than CVE-2011-1184.

Weakness: CWE-310

Which versions are affected by CVE-2011-5064?

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-2011-5064?

Upgrade org.apache.tomcat:tomcat to a fixed version for your release line: 5.5.34, 6.0.33 or 7.0.12.

Is CVE-2011-5064 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2011-5064 in the wild and no public exploit code.

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-6cr4-7c7p-p3xv.