CVE-2018-15801 Authorization Bypass During JWT Issuer Validation with spring-security
Attackers can bypass authorization checks in Spring Security if a shared private key is used, allowing forged JWTs to be accepted as valid.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2018-15801?
CVE-2018-15801 is a low-severity authentication bypass vulnerability in Vmware Spring Framework, published on 19 Dec 2018. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Spring Security versions 5.1.x prior to 5.1.2 contain an authorization bypass vulnerability during JWT issuer validation. In order to be impacted, the same private key for an honest issuer and a malicious user must be used when signing JWTs. In that case, a malicious user could fashion signed JWTs with the malicious issuer URL that may be granted for the honest issuer.
Weakness: CWE-345
Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-15801?
4 open source packages ship an affected version, including org.springframework.security:spring-security-core and org.springframework.security:spring-security-oauth2-jose. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
org.springframework.security:spring-security-core Maven | From 5.1.0 | 5.1.2 |
org.springframework.security:spring-security-core Maven | From 5.1.0 | 5.1.2 |
org.springframework.security:spring-security-oauth2-jose Maven | From 5.1.0 | 5.1.2 |
org.springframework.security:spring-security-oauth2-jose Maven | From 5.1.0 | 5.1.2 |
Products include Vmware Spring Framework.
How do I fix CVE-2018-15801?
Upgrade org.springframework.security:spring-security-core to 5.1.2 or later.
Upgrade, and rotate credentials and sessions that may have been exposed. More about Authentication bypass.
Is CVE-2018-15801 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-15801 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Vmware Spring Framework
- CVE-2026-47884 Spring Framework Improper Path Limitation in XsltView
- CVE-2026-47890 Spring Framework Server Sent Event stream corruption while rendering fragments
- CVE-2026-47891 Spring Framework maxInMemorySize Bypassed in Jaxb2Decoder
- CVE-2026-47892 Spring Framework Header Predicate Bypass in WebFlux Functional Endpoints
- CVE-2026-59313 Server Sent Event stream corruption in Spring MVC functional web framework
Sources
Also known as GHSA-27xw-p8v6-9jjr.