Log4j vulnerability - Is Log4j 1.2.17 vulnerable (was unable to find any JNDI code in source)?

With regard to the Log4j JNDI remote code execution vulnerability that has been identified CVE-2021-44228 - (also see references) - I wondered if Log4j-v1.2 is also impacted, but the closest I got from source code review is the JMS-Appender.

The question is, while the posts on the Internet indicate that Log4j 1.2 is also vulnerable, I am not able to find the relevant source code for it.

Am I missing something that others have identified?

Log4j 1.2 appears to have a vulnerability in the socket-server class, but my understanding is that it needs to be enabled in the first place for it to be applicable and hence is not a passive threat unlike the JNDI-lookup vulnerability which the one identified appears to be.

Is my understanding - that Log4j v1.2 - is not vulnerable to the jndi-remote-code execution bug correct?

References

• Apache Log4j Security Vulnerabilities

• Zero-day in ubiquitous Log4j tool poses a grave threat to the Internet

• Worst Apache Log4j RCE Zero day Dropped on Internet

• ‘Log4Shell’ vulnerability poses critical threat to applications using ‘ubiquitous’ Java logging package Apache Log4j

This blog post from Cloudflare also indicates the same point as from AKX....that it was introduced from Log4j 2!

Update #1 - A fork of the (now-retired) apache-log4j-1.2.x with patch fixes for few vulnerabilities identified in the older library is now available (from the original log4j author). The site is https://reload4j.qos.ch/. As of 21-Jan-2022 version 1.2.18.2 has been released. Vulnerabilities addressed to date include those pertaining to JMSAppender, SocketServer and Chainsaw vulnerabilities. Note that I am simply relaying this information. Have not verified the fixes from my end. Please refer the link for additional details.

Solution 1:

The JNDI feature was added into Log4j 2.0-beta9.

Log4j 1.x thus does not have the vulnerable code.

Solution 2:

While not affected by the exact same Log4Shell issue, the Apache Log4j team recommends to remove JMSAppender and SocketServer, which has a vulnerability in CVE-2019-17571, from your JAR files.

You can use the zip command to remove the affected classes. Replace the filename/version with yours:

zip -d log4j-1.2.16.jar org/apache/log4j/net/JMSAppender.class
zip -d log4j-1.2.16.jar org/apache/log4j/net/SocketServer.class

You can look through through the files in your zip using less and grep, e.g. less log4j-1.2.16.jar | grep JMSAppender

That being said, Apache recommends that you upgrade to the 2.x version if possible. According to their security page:

Please note that Log4j 1.x has reached end of life and is no longer supported. Vulnerabilities reported after August 2015 against Log4j 1.x were not checked and will not be fixed. Users should upgrade to Log4j 2 to obtain security fixes.