Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:NSummary
CVE-2026-42404 is a medium-severity SSRF (CWE-918) vulnerability in Apache Neethi. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 40th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-4 (Information Flow Enforcement) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
Apache Neethi, a Java library for WS-Policy processing, contains a vulnerability in versions prior to 3.2.2 where the PolicyReference API does not impose restrictions on URIs during manual fetches of remote policy references. This allows applications explicitly calling the API to make outbound requests to arbitrary protocols and internal IP addresses, including link-local, multicast, or any-local addresses. The issue is classified as CWE-918 (Server-Side Request Forgery) with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N).
Remote attackers can exploit this vulnerability by tricking applications into invoking the PolicyReference API with a specially crafted URI, such as one targeting internal network resources or unsupported protocols. No authentication or user interaction is required, enabling network-accessible exploitation with low complexity. Successful attacks can result in limited confidentiality and integrity impacts, such as unauthorized access to internal services or data leakage via SSRF.
Apache advisories recommend upgrading to version 3.2.2, which restricts URIs to HTTP or HTTPS only and forbids link-local, multicast, and any-local addresses. Relevant discussions are available in the Apache mailing list announcement and oss-security mailing list post.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-26491
Vulnerability Data
Apache Neethi does not impose any restrictions on URIs when manually fetching remote policy references through the PolicyReference API. When an application explicitly calls the API to retrieve a policy from a remote URI, an outbound request is made for…
more
arbitrary protocols and internal IP adddresses. From 3.2.2, only http or https URIs are allowed, and link-local/multicast/any-local addresses are forbidden. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.2.2, which fixes this issue.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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V1.3.6V1.5.3V5.3.2V10.4.7
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Information flow enforcement can restrict which destinations the server is allowed to contact on behalf of users.
Input validation directly stops untrusted URLs from being accepted and fetched without destination checks.
Boundary protection limits the network reach of server-initiated requests even if SSRF occurs.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure development practices directly include input validation and destination allow-listing that prevent SSRF.
Runtime monitoring of web applications and services can detect anomalous outbound requests indicative of SSRF.
Vulnerability identification processes can discover and record SSRF flaws in web applications.
Network segmentation and egress controls can limit the damage from successful SSRF requests.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Operational threat data describing SSRF campaigns can be used to tighten outbound-request allow-lists and detection rules before attackers exploit them.