Spring Boot supports an embedded launch script that can be used to easily run the application as a systemd or init.d linux service. The script included with Spring Boot 1.5.9 and earlier and 2.0.0.M1 through 2.0.0.M7 is susceptible to a symlink attack which allows the "run_user" to overwrite and take ownership of any file on the same system. In order to instigate the attack, the application must be installed as a service and the "run_user" requires shell access to the server. Spring Boot application that are not installed as a service, or are not using the embedded launch script are not susceptible.

Malicious PATCH requests submitted to servers using Spring Data REST versions prior to 2.6.9 (Ingalls SR9), versions prior to 3.0.1 (Kay SR1) and Spring Boot versions prior to 1.5.9, 2.0 M6 can use specially crafted JSON data to run arbitrary Java code.