CVE-2018-15961
CRITICALCVE-2018-15961 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Unrestricted File Upload vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Adobe ColdFusion versions July 12 release (2018.0.0.310739), Update 6 and earlier, and Update 14 and earlier have an unrestricted file upload vulnerability. Successful exploitation…
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.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2018-15961.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2018-15961 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 ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Adobe ColdFusion versions July 12 release (2018.0.0.310739), Update 6 and earlier, and Update 14 and earlier have an unrestricted file upload vulnerability. Successful exploitation could lead to arbitrary code execution.
Affected Products
coldfusionadobeResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Adobe ColdFusion 2018 - Arbitrary File Upload
by Vahagn Vardanyan · Dec 11, 2018
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2018-15961 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Treat uploaded files as untrusted until proven otherwise: validate the actual content type rather than the supplied extension, store uploads outside the web root on a volume mounted without execute permission, and rename them to server-generated identifiers so an attacker cannot choose the path a request will later resolve.
How to detect CVE-2018-15961
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2018-15961 -u https://target- Template
- Adobe ColdFusion - Unrestricted File Upload Remote Code Execution
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability can result in remote code execution, allowing an attacker to take control of the affected system.
- Remediation
- Apply the necessary security patches or updates provided by Adobe to fix this vulnerability.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (SkyLark-Lab, ImNightmaree), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2018-15961 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.