Description

** UNSUPPORTED WHEN ASSIGNED ** Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in Apache Shindig. This issue affects Apache Shindig: all versions. Users with access to the Shindig REST API can send specially-crafted requests to trigger arbitrary code execution on the server. As this project is retired, we do not plan to release a version that fixes this issue. Users are recommended to find an alternative or restrict access to the instance to trusted users. NOTE: This vulnerability only affects products that are no longer supported by the maintainer.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.2",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-13T15:19:56.557Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-13T15:19:56.557Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability exists in Apache Shindig across all versions.\nThe vulnerability allows remote authenticated or unauthenticated users with access to the Shindig REST API to achieve arbitrary code execution on the underlying server.\nThe risk implications are critical, as successful exploitation permits complete system compromise and arbitrary command execution by malicious actors.\nThe target systems affected are all versions of Apache Shindig.\nBecause the Apache Shindig project is retired, no official software patches or vendor-supplied upgrades will be released to remediate this flaw.\nExploitation requires network access to the Shindig REST API endpoint and the capability to transmit specially-crafted serialized payloads designed to trigger insecure deserialization routines within the application logic.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability resides in the data handling routines of the Apache Shindig REST API component, specifically involving insecure deserialization of untrusted data.\nAll versions of Apache Shindig are affected by this architectural flaw.\nNetwork exposure is present wherever the Shindig REST API is accessible to potential callers.\nAuthentication and privilege requirements depend on the specific endpoint configuration, but adversaries capable of reaching the REST API can deliver malicious requests.\nThe root cause stems from the application accepting serialized objects or data structures from input streams and instantiating them without proper validation, type checking, or filtering.\nThe attack flow begins when an attacker crafts a malicious payload containing serialized data engineered to invoke arbitrary methods or gadget chains upon deserialization.\nThe attacker transmits this specially-crafted request over the network to the Apache Shindig REST API.\nUpon receiving the request, the vulnerable component processes the input and attempts to deserialize the untrusted data stream.\nDuring the deserialization process, the embedded object graph instantiates classes and executes static initialization blocks, constructors, or methods defined within the payload's gadget chain.\nThis behavior results in arbitrary code execution within the context of the running Java Virtual Machine or application process.\nPost-exploitation impact includes full system compromise, data exfiltration, lateral movement within the network, and deployment of secondary malware payloads."
}