CVE-2025-41242

Technical Description

Spring Framework MVC applications can be vulnerable to a “Path Traversal Vulnerability” when deployed on a non-compliant Servlet container.

An application can be vulnerable when all the following are true:

* the application is deployed as a WAR or with an embedded Servlet container

* the Servlet container does not reject suspicious sequences https://jakarta.ee/specifications/servlet/6.1/jakarta-servlet-spec-6.1.html#uri-path-canonicalization

* the application serves static resources https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/reference/web/webmvc/mvc-config/static-resources.html#page-title  with Spring resource handling

We have verified that applications deployed on Apache Tomcat or Eclipse Jetty are not vulnerable, as long as default security features are not disabled in the configuration. Because we cannot check exploits against all Servlet containers and configuration variants, we strongly recommend upgrading your application.

Remediation

Check the references section for vendor advisories, patches, and mitigation guidance. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.

References