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CVE-2024-36404

Exploitation: none CVSS 9.8 CRITICAL

CVSS base score: 9.8 (Critical) vendor CNA · v3.1

Score assigned by the vendor's own CVE Numbering Authority (CNA); CISA's Vulnrichment program adds a score only when the CNA omits one.

Vendor: geotools   Product: geotools

Description

GeoTools is an open source Java library that provides tools for geospatial data. Prior to versions 31.2, 30.4, and 29.6, Remote Code Execution (RCE) is possible if an application uses certain GeoTools functionality to evaluate XPath expressions supplied by user input. Versions 31.2, 30.4, and 29.6 contain a fix for this issue. As a workaround, GeoTools can operate with reduced functionality by removing the `gt-complex` jar from one's application. As an example of the impact, application schema `datastore` would not function without the ability to use XPath expressions to query complex content. Alternatively, one may utilize a drop-in replacement GeoTools jar from SourceForge for versions 31.1, 30.3, 30.2, 29.2, 28.2, 27.5, 27.4, 26.7, 26.4, 25.2, and 24.0. These jars are for download only and are not available from maven central, intended to quickly provide a fix to affected applications.

Lifecycle Timeline

Each milestone comes from a different source, so gaps between them are gaps in what those sources publish, not evidence that nothing happened. EPSS history for this CVE holds 128 points from 2024-07-06, tracked daily from 2026-09-09; earlier points are weekly, which dates a spike to within a week. Peak probability 91.0% on 2026-01-03.

Published Applicability

OSV.dev (incl. GHSA) 16 affected · 16 fixed · 0 not affected
CVE List v5 (CNA container) 3 affected · 0 fixed · 0 not affected
CVE List v5 (ADP/Vulnrichment) 3 affected · 0 fixed · 0 not affected

Check whether a specific version is affected →

What each source publishes about which product versions carry this vulnerability, kept as written rather than merged. Absence here means no source has published applicability data, not that nothing is affected.

Research & News Coverage

No mentions found in monitored research blogs or news feeds.

Detection & Exploitation

Scan
Exploit / Pen Test
none published
Network IDS/IPS
none published
Host / SIEM
none published

Coverage across public collections only: Nuclei and OpenVAS NVT (scan); Snort and Suricata ET Open (network); Sigma and YARA (host/SIEM); Metasploit, Exploit-DB and public GitHub repositories (exploit). Absence here means nothing public was found, not that detection is impossible.
GitHub PoC repositories are collected automatically by PoC-in-GitHub (CC0) and are not vetted: some are fakes and some are malware. Treat them as evidence that code was published, not as code to run.
OpenVAS coverage derives from the Greenbone Community Feed, made available under the Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0; its individual Vulnerability Tests are licensed GNU GPL v2.

CISA Assessment (Vulnrichment / SSVC)

none
yes
total
—
9.8 CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE-95 — Improper Neutralization of Directives in Dynamically Evaluated Code ('Eval Injection')
2024-07-03

D3FEND Countermeasures

Defensive techniques inferred by MITRE D3FEND from the underlying weakness (CWE-95) — general hardening and detection guidance for this weakness class, not a vendor patch for this specific CVE.

Listed By

SourceDateRecord
CISA Vulnrichment 2024-07-03 source record →

Referenced in Advisories

DateAdvisoryIssuer
2024-07-11 2024-068: Critical Vulnerabilities in GeoServer and GeoTools CERT-EU

Weaponization Timeline — Offensive & Testing Tools

No exploit-tool sightings recorded for this CVE.

Evidence tiers are explained on the About page — a merged Metasploit module is far stronger evidence than a distro package mention.

External References