CVE-2018-6961
HIGHCVE-2018-6961 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.1) OS Command Injection vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-25) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
VMware NSX SD-WAN Edge by VeloCloud prior to version 3.1.0 contains a command injection vulnerability in the local web UI component. This component is disabled by default and should…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-03-25. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-04-15.
- 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-2018-6961.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2018-6961 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.
Description
VMware NSX SD-WAN Edge by VeloCloud prior to version 3.1.0 contains a command injection vulnerability in the local web UI component. This component is disabled by default and should not be enabled on untrusted networks. VeloCloud by VMware will be removing this service from the product in future releases. Successful exploitation of this issue could result in remote code execution.
Affected Products
nsx sd-wan by velocloudvmwareResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
VMware NSX SD-WAN Edge < 3.1.2 - Command Injection
by ParagonSec · Jul 2, 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-2018-6961 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
How to detect CVE-2018-6961
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2018-6961 -u https://target- Template
- VMware NSX SD-WAN Edge - Command Injection
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation allows unauthenticated remote code execution as root.
- Remediation
- Upgrade to VMware SD-WAN Edge version 3.1.2 or later (diagnostic web UI component removed).
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (D3nverNg, thewindghost), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2018-6961 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.