CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2026-55223 — c3p0 is a JDBC Connection pooling library

Medium CVSS 6.3

c3p0 is a JDBC Connection pooling library. In versions prior to 0.14.0, c3p0 in combination with other libraries, can compose to a "sink" for deserialization gadgets. The JDBC spec's DataSource.getConnection() and ConnectionPoolDataSource.getPooledConnection() match the getXXX() form, so JavaBean libraries treat them as "properties" assumed safe while they actually call into JDBC drivers. Attackers can thus craft malicious DataSource objects whose property lookups invoke vulnerable drivers, then smuggle them in serialized form to where an application deserializes and auto-resolves bean properties — triggering the attack. This requires a susceptible DataSource/ConnectionPoolDataSource and JDBC driver on the CLASSPATH, plus a carrier that auto-looks-up JavaBean properties on = deserialization, most commonly a collection paired with an Apache commons-beanutils Comparator that sorts by bean properties. c3p0 supplied that susceptible DataSource/ConnectionPoolDataSource, which was an essential component of the trigger. This issue has been fixed in version 0.14.0.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
6.3 (4.0)
Published
2026-06-30
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-502, CWE-915

Affected products

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Matched remediation archetype

Unsafe deserialization and object reconstruction

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Check exposure

  • Inventory serialization formats accepted from requests, queues, caches, files, cookies, and cross-service messages.
  • Trace whether untrusted input can select classes, types, callbacks, constructors, or object hooks during decoding.
  • Identify signing, schema validation, trust-boundary, and compatibility settings for each decoder.

Remediate safely

  • Replace native object deserialization with a data-only format and explicit schema validation.
  • If replacement is not immediate, use a safe decoder with a minimal type allowlist and disable polymorphic or executable hooks.
  • Update the affected library and add inert tests for unknown types, extra fields, malformed nesting, and unsigned data.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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