CVE-2020-10148 — Orion Platform
CRITICALCVE-2020-10148 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) CWE-288 vulnerability in solarwinds orion platform. 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.
The SolarWinds Orion API is vulnerable to an authentication bypass that could allow a remote attacker to execute API commands. This vulnerability could allow a remote attacker to bypass…
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-2020-10148.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-10148 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
The SolarWinds Orion API is vulnerable to an authentication bypass that could allow a remote attacker to execute API commands. This vulnerability could allow a remote attacker to bypass authentication and execute API commands which may result in a compromise of the SolarWinds instance. SolarWinds Orion Platform versions 2019.4 HF 5, 2020.2 with no hotfix installed, and 2020.2 HF 1 are affected.
Affected Products
orion platformsolarwindsResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
The SolarWinds Orion API is vulnerable to an authentication bypass that …
The SolarWinds Orion API is vulnerable to an authentication bypass that …
The SolarWinds Orion API is vulnerable to an authentication bypass that …
The SolarWinds Orion API is vulnerable to an authentication bypass that …
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every solarwinds orion platform deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2020-10148 yet — track the solarwinds orion platform advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Put an independent control in front of the weakness: restrict the affected endpoint or interface to trusted networks, require an additional authentication factor or proxy-level check, and invalidate existing sessions and credentials in case the flaw has already been used. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
How to detect CVE-2020-10148
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2020-10148 -u https://target- Template
- SolarWinds Orion API - Auth Bypass
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive information and potential compromise of the SolarWinds Orion system.
- Remediation
- Apply the necessary patches or updates provided by SolarWinds to fix the authentication bypass vulnerability.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (dwisiswant0), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-10148 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.