CVE-2026-40453: Apache Camel: Incomplete fix for CVE-2025-27636 in non-HTTP HeaderFilterStrategies (camel-jms, camel-sjms, camel-coap, camel-google-pubsub) allows case-variant header injection

[Andrea Cosentino <acosentino () apache org>]

Severity: important 

Affected versions:

- Apache Camel (org.apache.camel:camel-jms) 3.0.0 before 4.14.6
- Apache Camel (org.apache.camel:camel-jms) 4.15.0 before 4.18.2
- Apache Camel (org.apache.camel:camel-jms) 4.19.0 before 4.20.0

Description:

The fix for CVE-2025-27636 added setLowerCase(true) to HttpHeaderFilterStrategy so that case-variant header names such 
as 'CAmelExecCommandExecutable' are filtered out alongside 'CamelExecCommandExecutable'. The same setLowerCase(true) 
call was not applied to five non-HTTP HeaderFilterStrategy implementations: JmsHeaderFilterStrategy and 
ClassicJmsHeaderFilterStrategy in camel-jms, SjmsHeaderFilterStrategy in camel-sjms, CoAPHeaderFilterStrategy in 
camel-coap, and GooglePubsubHeaderFilterStrategy in camel-google-pubsub. Because those strategies use case-sensitive 
String.startsWith('Camel'/'camel') filtering while the Camel Exchange stores headers in a case-insensitive map, an 
attacker with JMS (or equivalent) producer access to the broker consumed by a Camel route can inject case-variant Camel 
internal headers, which are then resolved by downstream components such as camel-exec and camel-file using their 
canonical casing. This enables remote code execution and arbitrary file write on routes that forward JMS messages to 
header-driven components.

This issue affects Apache Camel: from 3.0.0 before 4.14.6, from 4.15.0 before 4.18.2, from 4.19.0 before 4.20.0.

Users are recommended to upgrade to version 4.20.0, which fixes the issue. If users are on the 4.14.x LTS releases 
stream, then they are suggested to upgrade to 4.14.6. If users are on the 4.18.x releases stream, then they are 
suggested to upgrade to 4.18.2.

This issue is being tracked as CAMEL-23313 

Credit:

Saroj Khadka (finder)

References:

https://camel.apache.org/security/CVE-2026-40453.html
https://camel.apache.org/
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-40453
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CAMEL-23313