CVE-2019-12331

Public Exploit

Description

PHPOffice PhpSpreadsheet before 1.8.0 has an XXE issue. The XmlScanner decodes the sheet1.xml from an .xlsx to utf-8 if something else than UTF-8 is declared in the header. This was a security measurement to prevent CVE-2018-19277 but the fix is not sufficient. By double-encoding the the xml payload to utf-7 it is possible to bypass the check for the string ‚<!ENTITY‘ and thus allowing for an xml external entity processing (XXE) attack.

Category

8.8
CVSS
Severity: High
CVSS 3.1 •
CVSS 2.0 •
EPSS 0.32%
Third-Party Advisory github.com Third-Party Advisory usd.de
Affected: n/a n/a
Published at:
Updated at:

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the severity of CVE-2019-12331?
CVE-2019-12331 has been scored as a high severity vulnerability.
How to fix CVE-2019-12331?
To fix CVE-2019-12331, make sure you are using an up-to-date version of the affected component(s) by checking the vendor release notes. As for now, there are no other specific guidelines available.
Is CVE-2019-12331 being actively exploited in the wild?
It is possible that CVE-2019-12331 is being exploited or will be exploited in a near future based on public information. According to its EPSS score, there is a ~0% probability that this vulnerability will be exploited by malicious actors in the next 30 days.
This platform uses data from the NIST NVD, MITRE CVE, MITRE CWE, First.org and CISA KEV but is not endorsed or certified by these entities. CVE is a registred trademark of the MITRE Corporation and the authoritative source of CVE content is MITRE's CVE web site. CWE is a registred trademark of the MITRE Corporation and the authoritative source of CWE content is MITRE's CWE web site.
© 2025 Under My Watch. All Rights Reserved.