CVE-2023-41179 — Apex One
HIGHCVE-2023-41179 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.2) Code Injection vulnerability in trendmicro apex one. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-09-21) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
A vulnerability in the 3rd party AV uninstaller module contained in Trend Micro Apex One (on-prem and SaaS), Worry-Free Business Security and Worry-Free Business Security Services could…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-09-21. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-10-12.
- 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-2023-41179.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-41179 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
A vulnerability in the 3rd party AV uninstaller module contained in Trend Micro Apex One (on-prem and SaaS), Worry-Free Business Security and Worry-Free Business Security Services could allow an attacker to manipulate the module to execute arbitrary commands on an affected installation.
Note that an attacker must first obtain administrative console access on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.
Affected Products
apex onetrendmicroworry-free business securitytrendmicroworry-free business security servicestrendmicroResearch 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
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every trendmicro apex one deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2023-41179 yet — track the trendmicro apex one advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds 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. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-41179 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.