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CISA KEV · ACTIVELY EXPLOITED
CRITICAL severity

Apache ActiveMQ is vulnerable to Remote Code ExecutionGHSA-crg9-44h2-xw35

CRITICALFix: apache/activemq#1098

GHSA-crg9-44h2-xw35 is a critical-severity (CVSS 10) Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in org.apache.activemq:activemq-client. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-11-02) and has been used in ransomware campaigns — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. A fix is available for org.apache.activemq:activemq-client — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Also known asBIT-activemq-2023-46604CVE-2023-46604
Published
Updated
Affected
8 pkgs
Patched
8 / 8
Exploits
23 known
Exploitation data as of Oct 23, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, CISA KEV, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

Actively exploited in the wild

  • Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-11-02 — including use in ransomware campaigns. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-11-23.
  • 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 GHSA-crg9-44h2-xw35.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
99.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Very High Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs100th percentile — riskier than 100% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
92.8%95.2%97.6%100.0%94.4%99.9%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

GHSA-crg9-44h2-xw35 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.

Real-World Exposure

8 pkgs affected
☕org.apache.activemq:activemq-client☕org.apache.activemq:activemq-client☕org.apache.activemq:activemq-client☕org.apache.activemq:activemq-client☕org.apache.activemq:activemq-openwire-legacy☕org.apache.activemq:activemq-openwire-legacy☕org.apache.activemq:activemq-openwire-legacy☕org.apache.activemq:activemq-openwire-legacy

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

The Java OpenWire protocol marshaller is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution. This vulnerability may allow a remote attacker with network access to either a Java-based OpenWire broker or client to run arbitrary shell commands by manipulating serialized class types in the OpenWire protocol to cause either the client or the broker (respectively) to instantiate any class on the classpath.

Users are recommended to upgrade both brokers and clients to version 5.15.16, 5.16.7, 5.17.6, or 5.18.3 which fixes this issue.

Affected Packages

8 total 8 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
☕Mavenorg.apache.activemq:activemq-clientall versions5.15.16org.apache.activemq:activemq-client:5.15.16
☕Mavenorg.apache.activemq:activemq-client≥ 5.16.0&&< 5.16.75.16.7org.apache.activemq:activemq-client:5.16.7
☕Mavenorg.apache.activemq:activemq-client≥ 5.17.0&&< 5.17.65.17.6org.apache.activemq:activemq-client:5.17.6
☕Mavenorg.apache.activemq:activemq-client≥ 5.18.0&&< 5.18.35.18.3org.apache.activemq:activemq-client:5.18.3
☕Mavenorg.apache.activemq:activemq-openwire-legacy≥ 5.8.0&&< 5.15.165.15.16org.apache.activemq:activemq-openwire-legacy:5.15.16
☕Mavenorg.apache.activemq:activemq-openwire-legacy≥ 5.16.0&&< 5.16.75.16.7org.apache.activemq:activemq-openwire-legacy:5.16.7

Affected Products

6 products · 13 configurations
Application
activemqapache
≥ 5.18.0 && < 5.18.3
range
Application
activemq legacy openwire moduleapache
≥ 5.18.0 && < 5.18.3
range
OS
debian linuxdebian
2 versions
10.011.0
Application
e-series santricity unified managernetapp
all
Application
e-series santricity web services proxynetapp
all
Application
santricity storage pluginnetapp
all
Exploits & PoCs
23

Research 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

Open-source dependency
  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.activemq:activemq-client, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update org.apache.activemq:activemq-client to 5.15.16 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-crg9-44h2-xw35 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. 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.

Fixing This On Your OS

If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.

Red HatCritical

If the openwire protocol IS NOT in use, system operators can disable the OpenWire protocol which removes most risk of this vulnerability being exploited. If OpenWire IS being used, see the Mitigations section for potential options to reduce your attack surface. * How to determine if an AMQ 7 system is affected: Check…

Workaround published by Red Hat
In affected systems, it may be possible to mitigate some of the risks from this vulnerability. However this mitigation cannot eliminate all risks; the only complete resolution is to apply software updates. On systems where the broker is exposed to the public network, use firewall rules to restrict the transport ports and enable SSL to protect this "Transport".
Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-crg9-44h2-xw35 (CC BY 4.0)
ProductFixed inAdvisory
AMQ 6.3 openshift container imagesee advisoryRHSA-2023:6877
AMQ Broker 7.10.5see advisoryRHSA-2023:6878
AMQ Broker 7.11.4activemq-openwireRHSA-2023:6879
Red Hat Fuse 7.12.1activemq-openwireRHSA-2023:7247
Red Hat Fuse/AMQ 6.3.20activemq-openwireRHSA-2023:6849
RHEL-7 based Middleware Containersjboss-amq-6/amq63-openshift:1.4-50RHSA-2023:6866

Frequently Asked Questions

Apache ActiveMQ is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution.The vulnerability may allow a remote attacker with network access to a broker to run arbitrary shell commands by manipulating serialized class types in the OpenWire protocol to cause the broker to instantiate any class on the classpath.  Users are recommended to upgrade to version 5.15.16, 5.16.7, 5.17.6, or 5.18.3, which fixes this issue.
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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Apache ActiveMQ is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution