CVE-2018-15811 — DotNetNuke.Core
HIGHCVE-2018-15811 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-326 vulnerability in DotNetNuke.Core. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. A fix is available for DotNetNuke.Core — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Inadequate Encryption Strength in DotNetNuke
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-05-03.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2018-15811.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2018-15811 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
DotNetNuke.CoreReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects NuGet packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
DNN (aka DotNetNuke) 9.2 through 9.2.1 uses a weak encryption algorithm to protect input parameters.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| .NETNuGet | DotNetNuke.Core | ≥ 9.2.0&&< 9.2.2 | 9.2.2dotnet add package DotNetNuke.Core --version 9.2.2 |
Affected Products
dotnetnukednnsoftwareResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
DotNetNuke - Cookie Deserialization Remote Code Execution (Metasploit)
by Metasploit · Apr 16, 2020
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for DotNetNuke.Core, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update DotNetNuke.Core to 9.2.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2018-15811 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How to detect CVE-2018-15811
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2018-15811 -u https://target- Template
- DotNetNuke 9.2 - 9.2.1 - Weak Encryption & Cookie Deserialization
- Severity
- high
- Impact
- Attackers can exploit weak encryption to decrypt or tamper with input parameters and execute arbitrary code through cookie deserialization attacks.
- Remediation
- Update to DotNetNuke version 9.2.2 or later which addresses the weak encryption issues.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (pdteam), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2018-15811 in your dependencies?
Find it across NuGet, including transitive dependencies.