Bug 2401958 (CVE-2025-6985)

Summary:	CVE-2025-6985 langchain-text-splitters: XXE Vulnerability in langchain-text-splitters
Product:	[Other] Security Response	Reporter:	OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component:	vulnerability	Assignee:	Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	high	Docs Contact:
Priority:	high
Version:	unspecified	CC:	anpicker, bbrownin, bparees, haoli, hasun, hkataria, jajackso, jcammara, jfula, jmitchel, jneedle, jowilson, jwong, kegrant, koliveir, kshier, mabashia, nyancey, ometelka, pbraun, ptisnovs, shvarugh, simaishi, smcdonal, stcannon, syedriko, teagle, tfister, thavo, ttakamiy, xdharmai, yguenane
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Security
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	---
Doc Text:	An XML external entity reference vulnerability has been discovered in the python langchain-text-splitters package. This vulnerability arises because the class allows the use of arbitrary XSLT stylesheets, which are parsed using lxml.etree.parse() and lxml.etree.XSLT() without any hardening measures. In lxml versions up to 4.9.x, external entities are resolved by default, allowing attackers to read arbitrary local files or perform outbound HTTP(S) fetches. In lxml versions 5.0 and above, while entity expansion is disabled, the XSLT document() function can still read any URI unless XSLTAccessControl is applied. This vulnerability allows remote attackers to gain read-only access to any file the LangChain process can reach, including sensitive files such as SSH keys, environment files, source code, or cloud metadata. No authentication, special privileges, or user interaction are required, and the issue is exploitable in default deployments that enable custom XSLT.	Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:		Type:	---
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-10-06 19:01:29 UTC

The HTMLSectionSplitter class in langchain-text-splitters version 0.3.8 is vulnerable to XML External Entity (XXE) attacks due to unsafe XSLT parsing. This vulnerability arises because the class allows the use of arbitrary XSLT stylesheets, which are parsed using lxml.etree.parse() and lxml.etree.XSLT() without any hardening measures. In lxml versions up to 4.9.x, external entities are resolved by default, allowing attackers to read arbitrary local files or perform outbound HTTP(S) fetches. In lxml versions 5.0 and above, while entity expansion is disabled, the XSLT document() function can still read any URI unless XSLTAccessControl is applied. This vulnerability allows remote attackers to gain read-only access to any file the LangChain process can reach, including sensitive files such as SSH keys, environment files, source code, or cloud metadata. No authentication, special privileges, or user interaction are required, and the issue is exploitable in default deployments that enable custom XSLT.

Comment 2 errata-xmlrpc 2025-10-22 16:41:42 UTC

This issue has been addressed in the following products:

  Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 for RHEL 8
  Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 for RHEL 9

Via RHSA-2025:18984 https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2025:18984