CVE-2024-28986 — Web Help Desk
CRITICALCVE-2024-28986 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in solarwinds web help desk. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2024-08-15) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
SolarWinds Web Help Desk was found to be susceptible to a Java Deserialization Remote Code Execution vulnerability that, if exploited, would allow an attacker to run commands on the…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2024-08-15. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2024-09-05.
- 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-2024-28986.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-28986 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 50–90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
SolarWinds Web Help Desk was found to be susceptible to a Java Deserialization Remote Code Execution vulnerability that, if exploited, would allow an attacker to run commands on the host machine.
While it was reported as an unauthenticated vulnerability, SolarWinds has been unable to reproduce it without authentication after thorough testing.
However, out of an abundance of caution, we recommend all Web Help Desk customers apply the patch, which is now available.
Affected Products
web help desksolarwindsResearch 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 solarwinds web help desk deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2024-28986 yet — track the solarwinds web help desk 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-2024-28986
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2024-28986 -u https://target- Template
- SolarWinds Web Help Desk < 12.8.3 - Insecure Deserialization
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Attackers can execute arbitrary commands on the host machine, potentially leading to full system compromise.
- Remediation
- Apply the available patch provided by SolarWinds.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (rxerium), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-28986 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.