Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
medium 5.9

CVE-2018-1304 json

Apache Tomcat unauthorized access vulnerability

published 2018-02-28 8 y ago modified 2026-10-15 24 d ago also GHSA-6rxj-58jh-436r , EUVD-2018-0522

cvss
5.9
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
17.1%
EPSS 17.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 97%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The URL pattern of "" (the empty string) which exactly maps to the context root was not correctly handled in Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.4, 8.5.0 to 8.5.27, 8.0.0.RC1 to 8.0.49 and 7.0.0 to 7.0.84 when used as part of a security constraint definition. This caused the constraint to be ignored. It was, therefore, possible for unauthorised users to gain access to web application resources that should have been protected. Only security constraints with a URL pattern of the empty string were affected.

Patch / fix

  • maven org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-core 7.0.86, 8.0.51, 8.5.28, 9.0.5
  • tomcat7 Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 7.0.52-1ubuntu0.14
  • tomcat8 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 8.0.32-1ubuntu1.6

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2018-1304

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • hornetq jboss enterprise application platform 6 2.3.25-26.SP24_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7
  • jbossts jboss enterprise application platform 6 1:4.17.43-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7
  • jgroups jboss enterprise application platform 6 1:3.2.18-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7
  • jbossweb jboss enterprise application platform 6 7.5.28-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7
  • picketbox jboss enterprise application platform 6 4.1.7-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7
  • jboss-as-ee jboss enterprise application platform 6 7.5.20-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7
  • lucene-solr jboss enterprise application platform 6 3.6.2-8.redhat_9.1.ep6.el7
  • jboss-as-cli jboss enterprise application platform 6 7.5.20-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7

red hat advisories RHSA-2018:1448RHSA-2018:1449RHSA-2018:1450RHSA-2018:1451RHSA-2018:0466RHSA-2019:2205

  • tomcat6 SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP4 6.0.53-0.57.7.1
  • tomcat SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 +2 more 8.0.50-29.8.2
  • tomcat SLES for SAP 12 SP1, SLES 12 SP1-LTSS 8.0.53-10.35.1
  • tomcat SLES 12-LTSS 7.0.90-7.23.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2018:3388-1SUSE-SU-2018:3261-1SUSE-SU-2018:1847-1SUSE-SU-2018:0817-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2018-1304 updated cvss 6.5

tomcat: Incorrect handling of empty string URL in security constraints can lead to unintended exposure of resources

  • Red Hat JBoss Data Grid 6 jbossweb jbossweb Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Web Server 2 tomcat7 tomcat7
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat JBoss Fuse Integration Service 2 tomcat8 tomcat8
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat JBoss Portal 6 jbossweb jbossweb
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat OpenShift Application Runtimes tomcat
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) tomcat 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-servlet-3.0-api 7.0.76-9.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) tomcat 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-lib 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-jsvc 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-javadoc 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-webapps 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-el-2.2-api 7.0.76-9.el7, +3 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) tomcat 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-servlet-3.0-api 7.0.76-9.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) tomcat 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-lib 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-jsvc 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-javadoc 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-webapps 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-el-2.2-api 7.0.76-9.el7, +3 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) tomcat 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-lib 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-webapps 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-el-2.2-api 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-jsp-2.2-api 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-admin-webapps 7.0.76-9.el7, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) tomcat 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-lib 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-jsvc 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-javadoc 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-webapps 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-el-2.2-api 7.0.76-9.el7, +3 more
    +2 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) tomcat 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-lib 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-webapps 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-el-2.2-api 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-jsp-2.2-api 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-admin-webapps 7.0.76-9.el7, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) tomcat-jsvc 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-javadoc 7.0.76-9.el7, tomcat-docs-webapp 7.0.76-9.el7
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2019:2205
  • Red Hat Fuse Intergration Services 2.0 based on Fuse 6.3 R8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:2939
  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1447
  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.4 for RHEL 5 Server lucene-solr 3.6.2-8.redhat_9.1.ep6.el5, hornetq 2.3.25-26.SP24_redhat_1.1.ep6.el5, jgroups 3.2.18-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el5, jbossts 4.17.43-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el5, jbossweb 7.5.28-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el5, picketbox 4.1.7-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el5, +68 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1450
show 6 more
  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.4 for RHEL 6 Server lucene-solr 3.6.2-8.redhat_9.1.ep6.el6, hornetq 2.3.25-26.SP24_redhat_1.1.ep6.el6, jgroups 3.2.18-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el6, jbossts 4.17.43-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el6, jbossweb 7.5.28-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el6, picketbox 4.1.7-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el6, +70 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1449
  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.4 for RHEL 7 Server lucene-solr 3.6.2-8.redhat_9.1.ep6.el7, hornetq 2.3.25-26.SP24_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7, jgroups 3.2.18-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7, jbossts 4.17.43-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7, jbossweb 7.5.28-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7, picketbox 4.1.7-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep6.el7, +68 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1448
  • Red Hat JBoss Web Server 3.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:0465
  • Red Hat JBoss Web Server 3.1 for RHEL 6 tomcat7 7.0.70-25.ep7.el6, tomcat8 8.0.36-29.ep7.el6, tomcat7-lib 7.0.70-25.ep7.el6, tomcat8-lib 8.0.36-29.ep7.el6, tomcat7-jsvc 7.0.70-25.ep7.el6, tomcat8-jsvc 8.0.36-29.ep7.el6, +25 more Red Hat JBoss Web Server 3.1 for RHEL 7 tomcat7 7.0.70-25.ep7.el7, tomcat8 8.0.36-29.ep7.el7, tomcat7-lib 7.0.70-25.ep7.el7, tomcat8-lib 8.0.36-29.ep7.el7, tomcat7-jsvc 7.0.70-25.ep7.el7, tomcat8-jsvc 8.0.36-29.ep7.el7, +25 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:0466
  • Red Hat Openshift Application Runtimes
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1320
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 tomcat5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 tomcat6, tomcat6-lib, tomcat6-log4j, tomcat6-javadoc, tomcat6-webapps, tomcat6-el-2.1-api, +4 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 pki-deps:10.6/pki-servlet-container Red Hat JBoss Data Virtualization 6 jbossweb jbossweb Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Web Server 2 tomcat6, tomcat6-lib, tomcat6-log4j, tomcat6-javadoc, tomcat6-webapps, tomcat6-el-1.0-api, +5 more Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6 karaf karaf, jbossweb jbossweb
    +2 more products
    Red Hat JBoss Operations Network 3 jbossweb jbossweb Red Hat Software Collections rh-java-common-tomcat-lib, rh-java-common-tomcat-javadoc, rh-java-common-tomcat-el-2.2-api, rh-java-common-tomcat-jsp-2.2-api, rh-java-common-tomcat-servlet-3.0-api
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
24 d ago

Exploit prediction

17.07% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 97% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 5.9 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.0 5.9 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
maven org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-core
>=9.0.0, <9.0.5
>=8.5.0, <8.5.28
>=8.0.0, <8.0.51
>=7.0.0, <7.0.86
9.0.5
8.5.28
8.0.51
7.0.86

Affected products

  • Apache Software Foundation Apache Tomcat

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.