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CVE-2025-68161

MediumCVSS 6.3 / 10
Published Dec 18, 2025·Last modified Jul 8, 2026
Affected Components(0)

No affected components available

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.

Risk Scores
Base Score
6.3

The vulnerability can be exploited over the network without needing physical access. It is difficult for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability and may require special conditions. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability.

Threat Intelligence
1.7

Limited exploitation activity has been observed. Close monitoring and planned remediation are recommended.

EPSS
0.76%

The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.

Exploit
Not available

We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.

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