CVE-2026-90885

HIGH
Published Oct 26, 2026 Modified Oct 26, 2026 CWE-611

Description

Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference vulnerability in Apache Camel Saxon component. This issue affects Apache Camel: from 4.0.0 before 4.18.5, from 4.19.0 before 4.22.2. XQueryBuilder in camel-saxon, which evaluates expressions for the xquery language and the xquery component, built its default Saxon Configuration with parse options that set only a whitespace stripping rule, leaving the XML parser at its defaults, under which a DOCTYPE declaration is accepted and external entities are resolved. A message body of type String or byte[], or any body read as an InputStream, is first turned into a javax.xml.transform.Source by Camel's own XML type converters, which configure the parser against external entities, so those bodies were not affected. A body that was already a Source, however, was handed to Saxon unchanged, and when that Source still had to be parsed, as a stream-based Source does, Saxon parsed it with that Configuration, bypassing the protection applied to the other body types. Such a body arises, for example, after a route converts the message with convertBodyTo(Source.class), or when a component or processor earlier in the route sets the body to a stream-based Source. A DOCTYPE with an external subset, or an external entity, declared in that body was therefore resolved and expanded into the document the expression was evaluated against. An external sender whose XML reaches an XQuery expression or an xquery endpoint in that form could read files readable by the Camel process and cause the process to issue requests to hosts the document names. No non-default option is required, since the default Configuration is used whenever the route does not supply one of its own. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 4.23.0, which fixes the issue. If users are on the 4.22.x releases stream, then they are suggested to upgrade to 4.22.2. If users are on the 4.18.x releases stream, then they are suggested to upgrade to 4.18.5. The 4.14.x releases stream and earlier, as well as the 4.15.x to 4.17.x and 4.19.x to 4.21.x release lines, reached end of life before this issue was resolved and will not receive a fix, so deployments on them must move to a supported release. For deployments that cannot upgrade immediately, do not evaluate XQuery over a message body that is already a javax.xml.transform.Source when that body carries XML from an untrusted sender, or set the configuration option of the xquery endpoint or language to a Saxon Configuration whose parse options refuse a DOCTYPE declaration and disable external entities and external DTD loading, which is what the fixed releases now apply by default.

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CVSS v3.1 Score

7.5
HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

EPSS — Exploit Prediction

0.0060
Probability of exploitation
0.49%
Percentile rank

EPSS estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A higher score means more likely to be exploited.

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-611 CWE-611

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2026-90885? +
Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference vulnerability in Apache Camel Saxon component. This issue affects Apache Camel: from 4.0.0 before 4.18.5, from 4.19.0 before 4.22.2. XQueryBuilder in camel-saxon, which evaluates expressions for the xquery language and the xquery component, built its default Saxon Configuration with parse options that set only a whitespace stripping rule, leaving the XML parser at its defaults, under which a DOCTYPE declaration is accepted and external entities are resolved. A message body of type String or byte[], or any body read as an InputStream, is first turned into a javax.xml.transform.Source by Camel's own XML type converters, which configure the parser against external entities, so those bodies were not affected. A body that was already a Source, however, was handed to Saxon unchanged, and when that Source still had to be parsed, as a stream-based Source does, Saxon parsed it with that Configuration, bypassing the protection applied to the other body types. Such a body arises, for example, after a route converts the message with convertBodyTo(Source.class), or when a component or processor earlier in the route sets the body to a stream-based Source. A DOCTYPE with an external subset, or an external entity, declared in that body was therefore resolved and expanded into the document the expression was evaluated against. An external sender whose XML reaches an XQuery expression or an xquery endpoint in that form could read files readable by the Camel process and cause the process to issue requests to hosts the document names. No non-default option is required, since the default Configuration is used whenever the route does not supply one of its own. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 4.23.0, which fixes the issue. If users are on the 4.22.x releases stream, then they are suggested to upgrade to 4.22.2. If users are on the 4.18.x releases stream, then they are suggested to upgrade to 4.18.5. The 4.14.x releases stream and earlier, as well as the 4.15.x to 4.17.x and 4.19.x to 4.21.x release lines, reached end of life before this issue was resolved and will not receive a fix, so deployments on them must move to a supported release. For deployments that cannot upgrade immediately, do not evaluate XQuery over a message body that is already a javax.xml.transform.Source when that body carries XML from an untrusted sender, or set the configuration option of the xquery endpoint or language to a Saxon Configuration whose parse options refuse a DOCTYPE declaration and disable external entities and external DTD loading, which is what the fixed releases now apply by default. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH).
How severe is CVE-2026-90885? +
CVE-2026-90885 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.5 out of 10, rated HIGH. This is a high-severity vulnerability that should be prioritized for patching. The EPSS score is 0.0060, placing it in the 0th percentile for exploitation probability.
How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2026-90885? +
You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

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