Threats affecting pkg:maven/com.mchange/mchange-commons-java

mchange-commons-java is a Java library of shared utility classes used by mchange projects like the c3p0 connection pool. Prior to version 0.6.0, its JNDI ObjectFactory implementation (com.mchange.v2.naming.JavaBeanObjectFactory) will construct objects of arbitrary classes and initialize "JavaBean"-style properties, which for certain classes enables JNDI injection and "deserialization gadgets." Such initialization is unsafe for some classes: for example, setting the contentType property of a Swing JEditorPane to text/html and its text property to HTML containing a stylesheet <link> will provoke an HTTP GET on an arbitrary URL, potentially from within a trusted security domain. The problem is aggravated by the library's ReferenceIndirector, through which malicious JNDI Reference objects can be smuggled in for dereferencing wherever an application reads a Java-serialized object. This has been resolved in version 0.6.0.

mchange-commons-java, a library that provides Java utilities, includes code that mirrors early implementations of JNDI functionality, including support for remote `factoryClassLocation` values, by which code can be downloaded and invoked within a running application. If an attacker can provoke an application to read a maliciously crafted `jaxax.naming.Reference` or serialized object, they can provoke the download and execution of malicious code. Implementations of this functionality within the JDK were disabled by default behind a System property that defaults to `false`, `com.sun.jndi.ldap.object.trustURLCodebase`. However, since mchange-commons-java includes an independent implementation of JNDI derefencing, libraries (such as c3p0) that resolve references via that implementation could be provoked to download and execute malicious code even after the JDK was hardened. Mirroring the JDK patch, mchange-commons-java's JNDI functionality is gated by configuration parameters that default to restrictive values starting in version 0.4.0. No known workarounds are available. Versions prior to 0.4.0 should be avoided on application CLASSPATHs.