CVE-2014-0096 Improper Input Validation in Apache Tomcat

What is CVE-2014-0096?

CVE-2014-0096 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Apache Tomcat, published on 31 May 2014. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

java/org/apache/catalina/servlets/DefaultServlet.java in the default servlet in Apache Tomcat before 6.0.40, 7.x before 7.0.53, and 8.x before 8.0.4 does not properly restrict XSLT stylesheets, which allows remote attackers to bypass security-manager restrictions and read arbitrary files via a crafted web application that provides an XML external entity declaration in conjunction with an entity reference, related to an XML External Entity (XXE) issue.

Weakness: CWE-264

Which versions are affected by CVE-2014-0096?

12 open source packages ship an affected version, including org.apache.tomcat:tomcat and org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina. It affects 1 product.

Products include Apache Tomcat.

How do I fix CVE-2014-0096?

Upgrade org.apache.tomcat:tomcat to a fixed version for your release line: 6.0.40, 7.0.54 or 8.0.6.

Is CVE-2014-0096 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2014-0096 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-qprx-q2r7-3rx6, UBUNTU-CVE-2014-0096.