How to fix Log4J Vulnerability in Gradle Project

First, find out which log4j-related libraries you are really using, e.g. by

 .\gradlew dependencies --configuration=testRuntimeClasspath | find "log4j"

Then override them with a current version like so (docs), placed after the dependencies block:

configurations.all {
    resolutionStrategy {
        force 'org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-api:2.17.0'
        force 'org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-core:2.17.0'
        force 'org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-slf4j-impl:2.17.0'
        force 'org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-jul:2.17.0'
    }
}

You might need to add more/fewer libraries to that block depending on the results of the check in the beginning.

Since you are using Spring Boot, you can also use a Spring-Boot-specific feature to set the Log4J version:

ext['log4j2.version'] = '2.17.0'

I'm on MacOS and using subprojects:

First I run: ./gradlew projects which will list my subprojects:

The output:

:projects

------------------------------------------------------------
Root project
------------------------------------------------------------

Root project 'test-backend'
+--- Project ':test-suite'
+--- Project ':test-suite-services'
\--- Project ':test-utils'

Using the output we can one by one check for dependencies:

./gradlew test-suite:dependencies | grep "log4j"
./gradlew test-suite-services:dependencies | grep "log4j"
./gradlew test-utils:dependencies | grep "log4j"

• https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/resolution_rules.html constrains are preferred.
• https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/rich_versions.html#rich-version-constraints
• https://blog.gradle.org/log4j-vulnerability

dependencies {
    constraints {
        implementation('org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-api') {
            version {
                strictly('[2.17, 3[')
                prefer('2.17.0')
            }
            because('CVE-2021-44228, CVE-2021-45046, CVE-2021-45105: Log4j vulnerable to remote code execution and other critical security vulnerabilities')
        }

        implementation('org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-core') {
            version {
                strictly('[2.17, 3[')
                prefer('2.17.0')
            }
            because('CVE-2021-44228, CVE-2021-45046, CVE-2021-45105: Log4j vulnerable to remote code execution and other critical security vulnerabilities')
        }

        implementation('org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-slf4j-impl') {
            version {
                strictly('[2.17, 3[')
                prefer('2.17.0')
            }
            because('CVE-2021-44228, CVE-2021-45046, CVE-2021-45105: Log4j vulnerable to remote code execution and other critical security vulnerabilities')
        }

        implementation('org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-web') {
            version {
                strictly('[2.17, 3[')
                prefer('2.17.0')
            }
            because('CVE-2021-44228, CVE-2021-45046, CVE-2021-45105: Log4j vulnerable to remote code execution and other critical security vulnerabilities')
        }
    }
}