CVE-2021-35464 — Access Management
CRITICALCVE-2021-35464 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in forgerock access management. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) and has been used in ransomware campaigns — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. A fix is available — see the affected versions and patch details below.
ForgeRock AM server before 7.0 has a Java deserialization vulnerability in the jato.pageSession parameter on multiple pages. The exploitation does not require authentication, and remote…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03 — including use in ransomware campaigns. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2021-11-17.
- 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-2021-35464.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-35464 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
ForgeRock AM server before 7.0 has a Java deserialization vulnerability in the jato.pageSession parameter on multiple pages. The exploitation does not require authentication, and remote code execution can be triggered by sending a single crafted /ccversion/* request to the server. The vulnerability exists due to the usage of Sun ONE Application Framework (JATO) found in versions of Java 8 or earlier
Affected Products
access managementforgerockopenamforgerockResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
ForgeRock Access Manager 14.6.3 - Remote Code Execution (RCE) (Unauthenticated)
by Photubias · Jul 16, 2021
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every forgerock access management deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Fix
Apply the forgerock access management security patch or hotfix for CVE-2021-35464 on the affected version, following the vendor advisory for your exact build.
Workarounds
Do not deserialise data from untrusted sources: where the format allows it, restrict deserialisation to an explicit allowlist of expected types, and prefer a data-only format (JSON, Protobuf) over one that can reconstruct arbitrary objects until you can upgrade. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
How to detect CVE-2021-35464
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2021-35464 -u https://target- Template
- ForgeRock OpenAM <7.0 - Remote Code Execution
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected system.
- Remediation
- Upgrade ForgeRock OpenAM to version 7.0 or later to mitigate this vulnerability.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (madrobot), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-35464 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.