What is CVE-2017-5644?

CVE-2017-5644 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Apache Poi, classified under Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs (XML Entity Expansion). CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2017-03-24.

How severe is CVE-2017-5644?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.

XXE in Apache Poi

CVE-2017-5644

Apache POI in versions prior to release 3.15 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via a specially crafted OOXML file, aka an XML Entity Expansion (XEE) attack.

Published 2017-03-24 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.046 (91.7th percentile), scored 2026-11-01.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 92nd percentile — 91.7% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.046 · newest: 0.046 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Apache Poi
Apache Software Foundation Poi — versions before 3.15

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-776 — Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs (XML Entity Expansion)

References

www.securityfocus.com/bid/96983 (vdb-entry)
www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuoct2020.html
poi.apache.org/ (Vendor Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2017-5644?: CVE-2017-5644 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Apache Poi, classified under Improper Restriction of Recursive Entity References in DTDs (XML Entity Expansion). CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2017-03-24.
How severe is CVE-2017-5644?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.