Description
In Soap Lite (aka the SOAP::Lite extension for Perl) 1.14 and earlier, an example attack consists of defining 10 or more XML entities, each defined as consisting of 10 of the previous entity, with the document consisting of a single instance of the largest entity, which expands to one billion copies of the first entity. The amount of computer memory used for handling an external SOAP call would likely exceed that available to the process parsing the XML.
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | libsoap-lite-perl | 1.19-1 | — |
| Debian 13 | libsoap-lite-perl | 1.19-1 | — |
| Debian 12 | libsoap-lite-perl | 1.19-1 | — |
| Debian 7 | libsoap-lite-perl | 0.714-1+deb7u1 | DLA-723-1 |
SUSE
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| SLES 11 SP4 | perl-SOAP-Lite | 0.710.08-3.1 | SUSE-SU-2016:3052-1 |
Advisories 2
- DLA-723-1 libsoap-lite-perl - security update Debian Security (DSA / DLA) · Mar 9, 2026
- SUSE-SU-2016:3052-1 Security update for perl-SOAP-Lite SUSE / openSUSE Security Updates · Feb 4, 2026