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CRITICAL KEV

tomcat: Apache Tomcat AJP File Read/Inclusion Vulnerability

Published Feb 24, 2020 ·Due Mar 17, 2022

Description

When using the Apache JServ Protocol (AJP), care must be taken when trusting incoming connections to Apache Tomcat. Tomcat treats AJP connections as having higher trust than, for example, a similar HTTP connection. If such connections are available to an attacker, they can be exploited in ways that may be surprising. In Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.0.30, 8.5.0 to 8.5.50 and 7.0.0 to 7.0.99, Tomcat shipped with an AJP Connector enabled by default that listened on all configured IP addresses. It was expected (and recommended in the security guide) that this Connector would be disabled if not required. This vulnerability report identified a mechanism that allowed: - returning arbitrary files from anywhere in the web application - processing any file in the web application as a JSP Further, if the web application allowed file upload and stored those files within the web application (or the attacker was able to control the content of the web application by some other means) then this, along with the ability to process a file as a JSP, made remote code execution possible. It is important to note that mitigation is only required if an AJP port is accessible to untrusted users. Users wishing to take a defence-in-depth approach and block the vector that permits returning arbitrary files and execution as JSP may upgrade to Apache Tomcat 9.0.31, 8.5.51 or 7.0.100 or later. A number of changes were made to the default AJP Connector configuration in 9.0.31 to harden the default configuration. It is likely that users upgrading to 9.0.31, 8.5.51 or 7.0.100 or later will need to make small changes to their configurations.

Affected products

Remediation

Red Hat statement

Please refer to the Red Hat knowledgebase article: https://access.redhat.com/solutions/4851251 and CVE page https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2020-1745

Red Hat mitigation

Please refer to the Red Hat knowledgebase article: https://access.redhat.com/solutions/4851251

Metrics

Weaknesses (2)

CWE-269

Improper Privilege Management

CWE-285

References (102)

Change history (0)

No recorded changes yet.

Sources
CVE.org / MITRE
Status PUBLISHED
Assigner apache
Published Feb 24, 2020
Updated Oct 21, 2025
Reserved Dec 2, 2019
Link CVE-2020-1938
CISA Vulnrichment
Updated Feb 6, 2025
NVD
Status Analyzed
Modified Aug 25, 2026
Link CVE-2020-1938
Red Hat
Severity Important
Public date Feb 20, 2020
Links CVE-2020-1938 - Bugzilla
GHSA-C9HW-WF7X-JP9J