CVE-2025-68161

Aliases:GHSA-vc5p-v9hr-52mj
Advisory lineage Upstream: 0 Downstream: 5
Modified
Published: 18 Dec 2025, 20:47
Last modified:10 Apr 2026, 16:18

Vulnerability Summary

Overall Risk (default)
medium
35/100
CVSS Score
6.3 MEDIUM
v4.0 (cve.org)
EPSS Score
0.03% LOW
0% probability -0.07%
KEV
Not listed
Ransomware
No reports
Public exploits
1 found
Dark Web
Not detected

Timeline

18 Dec 2025, 20:47
Published
Vulnerability first disclosed
10 Apr 2026, 16:18
Last Modified
Vulnerability information updated

Description

The Socket Appender in Apache Log4j Core versions 2.0-beta9 through 2.25.2 does not perform TLS hostname verification of the peer certificate, even when the verifyHostName https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/appenders/network.html#SslConfiguration-attr-verifyHostName configuration attribute or the log4j2.sslVerifyHostName https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/systemproperties.html#log4j2.sslVerifyHostName system property is set to true. This issue may allow a man-in-the-middle attacker to intercept or redirect log traffic under the following conditions: * The attacker is able to intercept or redirect network traffic between the client and the log receiver. * The attacker can present a server certificate issued by a certification authority trusted by the Socket Appender’s configured trust store (or by the default Java trust store if no custom trust store is configured). Users are advised to upgrade to Apache Log4j Core version 2.25.3, which addresses this issue. As an alternative mitigation, the Socket Appender may be configured to use a private or restricted trust root to limit the set of trusted certificates.

CVSS Metrics

  • v4.0•MEDIUM•Score: 6.3CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:L/SA:N
  • v4.0•MEDIUM•Score: 6.3CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:L/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
  • v3.1•MEDIUM•Score: 4.8CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

EPSS Trends

Current EPSS score: 0.03%• Percentile: 9%

Techniques & Countermeasures

  • CWE-295•Improper Certificate Validation

    The product does not validate, or incorrectly validates, a certificate.

  • CWE-297•Improper Validation of Certificate with Host Mismatch

    The product communicates with a host that provides a certificate, but the product does not properly ensure that the certificate is actually associated with that host.

Affected Systems

  • apache software foundation•apache log4j core

    ≥ 2.0-beta9, < 2.25.3 | ≥ 3.0.0-alpha1, ≤ 3.0.0-beta3

  • apache•log4j

    ≥ 2.0.1, < 2.25.3 | 2.0 | 2.0:beta9 | 2.0:rc1 | 2.0:rc1-rc1 | 2.0:rc2

  • org.apache.logging.log4j•log4j-core

    ≥ 2.0-beta9, < 2.25.3

References (11)