Apache Camel Security Advisory - CVE-2026-40048

Apache Camel security advisory: CVE-2026-40048

Severity

HIGH

Summary

Camel-PQC: Unsafe Deserialization from FileBasedKeyLifecycleManager

Versions affected

From 4.19.0 before 4.20.0, from 4.18.0 before 4.18.2.

Versions fixed

Description

The Camel-PQC FileBasedKeyLifecycleManager class deserializes the contents of `<keyId>.key` files in the configured key directory using java.io.ObjectInputStream without applying any ObjectInputFilter or class-loading restrictions. The cast to `java.security.KeyPair` is evaluated only after `readObject()` has already returned, so any `readObject()` side effects in the deserialized object run before the type check. An attacker who can write to the key directory used by a Camel application — for example through a path traversal into the directory, misconfigured filesystem permissions on the volume where keys are stored, a compromised key provisioning pipeline, or a symlink attack — can place a crafted serialized Java object that, when deserialized during normal key lifecycle operations, results in arbitrary code execution in the context of the application.

Notes

The JIRA ticket: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CAMEL-23200 refers to the various commits that resolved the issue, and have more details.

Mitigation

Users are recommended to upgrade to version 4.20.0, which fixes the issue by replacing java.io.ObjectInputStream-based key and metadata storage with standard PKCS#8 (private key) / X.509 SubjectPublicKeyInfo (public key) Base64 JSON encoding. For users on the 4.18.x LTS releases stream, upgrade to 4.18.2.

Credit

This issue was discovered by Andrea Cosentino from Apache Software Foundation and Venkatraman Kumar from Securin

References

PGP signed advisory data: CVE-2026-40048.txt.asc
Mitre CVE Entry: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-40048