CVE-2022-47986 — Aspera Faspex
CRITICALCVE-2022-47986 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in ibm aspera faspex. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-02-21) and has been used in ransomware campaigns — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
IBM Aspera Faspex 4.4.2 Patch Level 1 and earlier could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system, caused by a YAML deserialization flaw. By sending a specially…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-02-21 — including use in ransomware campaigns. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-03-14.
- 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-2022-47986.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2022-47986 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 394,415 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
IBM Aspera Faspex 4.4.2 Patch Level 1 and earlier could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system, caused by a YAML deserialization flaw. By sending a specially crafted obsolete API call, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code on the system. The obsolete API call was removed in Faspex 4.4.2 PL2. IBM X-Force ID: 243512.
Affected Products
aspera faspexibmResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
IBM Aspera Faspex 4.4.1 - YAML deserialization (RCE)
by Maurice Lambert · Apr 7, 2023
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every ibm aspera faspex deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2022-47986 yet — track the ibm aspera faspex advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
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-2022-47986
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2022-47986 -u https://target- Template
- IBM Aspera Faspex <=4.4.2 PL1 - Remote Code Execution
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected system.
- Remediation
- The obsolete API call was removed in 4.4.2 PL2. This vulnerability can be remediated by upgrading to either 4.4.2 PL2 or 5.x.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (coldfish), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-47986 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.