Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-40998

HighUpdated

Published: 11 June 2026

Published
11 June 2026
Modified
23 June 2026
KEV Added
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Patch
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CVSS Score v3.1 8.2 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0035 27.2th percentile
Risk Priority 55 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-40998 is a high-severity Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference (CWE-611) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 8.2 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 27.2th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A02:2025 Security Misconfiguration

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Jaxp13XPathTemplate evaluated XPath expressions for StreamSource and SAXSource inputs using a code path that parsed attacker-controlled XML with the JDK's default DocumentBuilderFactory behavior instead of Spring's hardened parser configuration. Applications that evaluate XPath against untrusted XML payloads could therefore be…

more

exposed to XML External Entity (XXE) style attacks. Affected versions: Spring Web Services 5.0.0 through 5.0.1; 4.1.0 through 4.1.3; 4.0.0 through 4.0.18; 3.1.0 through 3.1.8.

CWE(s)
CWE-611

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
attack.mitre.org →
Why these techniques?

XXE in a web services library directly enables exploitation of public-facing applications via untrusted XML input.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

Affected Assets

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Affected
inferred from references and description; NVD did not file a CPE for this CVE

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

CA-8 Penetration Testing
addresses: CWE-611

Penetration testing includes XML external entity payloads, detecting XXE vulnerabilities and enabling their mitigation.

SI-4 System Monitoring
addresses: CWE-611

Identifies XML external entity processing via monitoring of unusual file/network access or resource usage.

References