How broadly exploitable is this vulnerability?

Exploitability is constrained by access to the event log storage. An attacker must be able to write or modify Spark event logs that the History Server later reads. In environments where logs are tightly controlled and not writable by untrusted users, the risk is lower; in shared or multi-tenant clusters with relaxed permissions, the risk is significantly higher.

Does an attacker need authenticated access to exploit this issue?

Not necessarily in the traditional web authentication sense. The critical requirement is write access to the event log directory or bucket. That access might be granted via OS accounts, container permissions, Hadoop/S3 ACLs, or misconfigured storage policies, regardless of whether the attacker has direct access to the Spark History Web UI.

What is the safest general fix pattern for developers and maintainers?

The most robust pattern is to remove Jackson polymorphic deserialization based on arbitrary class names and instead deserialize into a small, explicitly whitelisted set of event types or DTOs. Combine this with schema-based validation, and ensure that deserialized classes are side-effect free and do not perform network or system actions during construction or initialization.

Severity:

HIGH RISK

(8.8)

Unsafe Jackson Deserialization (CWE-502) in Apache Spark History Server Event Log Processing

CVE-2025-54920

Published:

Mar 16, 2026

Status:

Analyzed

Summary

Affected Context

Exploit Preconditions

Why This Happens

Potential Impact

General Mitigation Guidance

How Teams Detect Issues Like This

Frequently Asked Questions

Source

NDV

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Vulnerability Type

Category:

Unsafe Deserialization

CWE:

CWE-502

Impact:

Remote Code Execution on Spark History Server host

Severity:

HIGH RISK

(8.8)

CVSS Version:

3.1

Vulnerability Type

Category:

Unsafe Deserialization

CWE:

CWE-502

Impact:

Remote Code Execution on Spark History Server host

Severity:

HIGH RISK

(8.8)

CVSS Version:

3.1

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Unsafe Jackson Deserialization (CWE-502) in Apache Spark History Server Event Log Processing

Summary

Affected Context

Exploit Preconditions

Why This Happens

Potential Impact

General Mitigation Guidance

How Teams Detect Issues Like This

Frequently Asked Questions

Source

Recent Vulnerabilities

HIGH RISK

HIGH

(8.6)

Server-Side Request Forgery (CWE-918) in OpenClaw Zalo Plugin sendPhoto

HIGH RISK

HIGH

(8.8)

Authorization Bypass (CWE-863) in OpenClaw Matrix Room Control Commands

Vulnerability Type

Vulnerability Type

Vulnerability Type

Catch This CVE While Code Is Being Written

Ship clean & secure code faster

Ship clean & secure code faster

Ship clean & secure code faster

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