CISA Flags Critical Apache OFBiz Flaw Amid Active Exploitation Reports

Aug 28, 2024Ravie LakshmananSoftware Security / Vulnerability

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added a critical security flaw affecting the Apache OFBiz open-source enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation in the wild.

The vulnerability, known as CVE-2024-38856, carries a CVSS score of 9.8, indicating critical severity.

"Apache OFBiz contains an incorrect authorization vulnerability that could allow remote code execution via a Groovy payload in the context of the OFBiz user process by an unauthenticated attacker," CISA said.

Details of the vulnerability first came to light earlier this month after SonicWall described it as a patch bypass for another flaw, CVE-2024-36104, that enables remote code execution via specially crafted requests.

"A flaw in the override view functionality exposes critical endpoints to unauthenticated threat actors using a crafted request, paving the way for remote code execution," SonicWall researcher Hasib Vhora said.

The development comes nearly three weeks after CISA placed a third flaw impacting Apache OFBiz (CVE-2024-32113) to the KEV catalog, following reports that it had been abused to deploy the Mirai botnet.

While there are currently no public reports about how CVE-2024-38856 is being weaponized in the wild, proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits have been made publicly available.

The active exploitation of two Apache OFBiz flaws is an indication that attackers are showing significant interest in and a tendency to pounce on publicly disclosed vulnerabilities to opportunistically breach susceptible instances for nefarious ends.

Organizations are recommended to update to version 18.12.15 to mitigate against the threat. Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies have been mandated to apply the necessary updates by September 17, 2024.

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