Included in Log4j 1.2 is a SocketServer class that is vulnerable to deserialization of untrusted data which can be exploited to remotely execute arbitrary code when combined with a deserialization gadget when listening to untrusted network traffic for log data. This affects Log4j versions up to 1.2 up to 1.2.17.

In Apache Log4j 2.x before 2.8.2, when using the TCP socket server or UDP socket server to receive serialized log events from another application, a specially crafted binary payload can be sent that, when deserialized, can execute arbitrary code.