CVE-2023-38205
HIGHCVE-2023-38205 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-284 vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-07-20) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Adobe ColdFusion versions 2018u18 (and earlier), 2021u8 (and earlier) and 2023u2 (and earlier) are affected by an Improper Access Control vulnerability that could result in a Security…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-07-20. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-08-10.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2023-38205.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-38205 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 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Adobe ColdFusion versions 2018u18 (and earlier), 2021u8 (and earlier) and 2023u2 (and earlier) are affected by an Improper Access Control vulnerability that could result in a Security feature bypass. An attacker could leverage this vulnerability to access the administration CFM and CFC endpoints. Exploitation of this issue does not require user interaction.
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.
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-2023-38205 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps 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.
How to detect CVE-2023-38205
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2023-38205 -u https://target- Template
- Adobe ColdFusion - Access Control Bypass
- Severity
- high
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to bypass access controls and gain unauthorized access to sensitive information or perform unauthorized actions.
- Remediation
- Apply the necessary security patches or updates provided by Adobe to mitigate this vulnerability.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (DhiyaneshDk), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-38205 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.