CVE-2017-5638: Equifax Struts2
Is CVE-2017-5638 real, exploitable, or a false positive? Here's the community verdict.
Community verdict: No field verdicts yet. Be the first practitioner to weigh in.
signals
public sources
Confirmed exploited in the wild. Patch this first, regardless of the base score.
cisa ssvc
CISA Vulnrichment · assessed
CISA decision, by how critical the affected system is to you:
- low impact → Attend
- medium impact → Act
- high impact → Act
Track: normal patch cycle · Track*: watch closely · Attend: patch sooner · Act: patch now. About SSVC ↗
public exploits
links to sources — we don’t host codeA working exploit is publicly available from a maintained source. Treat this as higher urgency and verify your exposure.
affected packages
GHSA-j77q-2qqg-6989 · GitHub rates it critical- Mavenorg.apache.struts:struts2-core
- Vulnerable
- ≥ 2.3.0, < 2.3.32; ≥ 2.5.0, < 2.5.10.1
- Fixed in
- 2.3.32, 2.5.10.1
Source: GitHub Advisory Database (CC-BY 4.0), via OSV.dev. Check your lockfile version against the ranges above.
baseline read
auto · not a community verdict
Real — exploited in the wild
CISA confirms active exploitation. Treat scanner hits as true positives unless your specific version or config is unaffected.
Based on CISA KEV
Confirm or dispute →CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
The Jakarta Multipart parser in Apache Struts 2 2.3.x before 2.3.32 and 2.5.x before 2.5.10.1 has incorrect exception handling and error-message generation during file-upload attempts, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via a crafted Content-Type, Content-Disposition, or Content-Length HTTP header, as exploited in the wild in March 2017 with a Content-Type header containing a #cmd= string.
References
Published · Added to CISA KEV (1699 days after publication)
Embed this verdict
[](https://www.truepositive.app/cve/CVE-2017-5638)<a href="https://www.truepositive.app/cve/CVE-2017-5638"><img src="https://www.truepositive.app/cve/CVE-2017-5638/badge.svg" alt="TruePositive verdict for CVE-2017-5638"></a>Live badge that updates automatically as the community verdict changes.
timeline
- CISA SSVC assessment · exploitation: active
- Added to CISA KEV · confirmed exploited in the wild
- Added to VulnCheck KEV · reported exploited in the wild
- Published by NVD
Score and exploit changes tracked since .
Community ground truth
Be the first practitioner to weigh in
So far this is only TruePositive's editorial baseline from public sources. Add your real-world verdict below — it becomes the signal the next person triaging this relies on.
🥇 The first 50 practitioners to contribute earn a Founding Contributor badge.
In your experience, is this finding real and exploitable?
awaiting field verdictsCurated baseline: TruePositive's read from public sources is Real & exploitable — a starting point, not a community verdict.
No account needed. Anonymous verdicts post as an unverified signal. Log in to make yours verified and earn reputation.
Field notes & remediation
Verdicts are the quick signal. Notes are the evidence and fixes behind them.
- 0
This is real and very easy to exploit. An attacker sends a malformed Content-Type header, and Struts runs the contents as an OGNL expression, which gives code execution with no login. This is the bug behind the Equifax breach. Public exploits appeared within hours and the internet was mass-scanned for it.
Who is affected: applications using Apache Struts 2 with the Jakarta Multipart parser on vulnerable versions (2.3.5 to 2.3.31, and 2.5 to 2.5.10). If the app is internet-facing and unpatched, assume it was probed.
How to check: find the Struts version bundled in your app's libraries. If it is in the vulnerable range and reachable, treat it as exploitable and look for signs of past compromise, because this was hit at scale.
Commonly flagged by: Nessus, Qualys, Rapid7, Trivy.
- 0
Upgrade Struts to 2.3.32 or 2.5.10.1 or later. If you cannot patch right away and you do not use file uploads, switch off the Jakarta Multipart parser, or add a WAF rule to block malformed Content-Type headers. Treat those as temporary. After patching, hunt for web shells and unexpected child processes from the app server.
Add a field note or remediationoptional
Related CVEs
Same weakness: CWE-755.
- CVE-2022-44698MED 5.4KEVEPSS 76%
Windows SmartScreen Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
- CVE-2021-38003HIGH 8.8KEVEPSS 39%
Inappropriate implementation in V8 in Google Chrome prior to 95.0.4638.69 allowed a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page.
- CVE-2024-29748HIGH 7.8KEVEPSS 1%
there is a possible way to bypass due to a logic error in the code. This could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed. User interaction is needed for exploitation.
- CVE-2024-21907HIGH 7.5EPSS 33%
Newtonsoft.Json before version 13.0.1 is affected by a mishandling of exceptional conditions vulnerability. Crafted data that is passed to the JsonConvert.DeserializeObject method may trigger a StackOverflow exception resulting in denial of service. Depending on the usage of the library, an unauthenticated and remote attacker may be able to cause the denial of service condition.
- CVE-2017-5664HIGH 7.5EPSS 17%
The error page mechanism of the Java Servlet Specification requires that, when an error occurs and an error page is configured for the error that occurred, the original request and response are forwarded to the error page. This means that the request is presented to the error page with the original HTTP method. If the error page is a static file, expected behaviour is to serve content of the file as if processing a GET request, regardless of the actual HTTP method. The Default Servlet in Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.0.M20, 8.5.0 to 8.5.14, 8.0.0.RC1 to 8.0.43 and 7.0.0 to 7.0.77 did not do this. Depending on the original request this could lead to unexpected and undesirable results for static error pages including, if the DefaultServlet is configured to permit writes, the replacement or removal of the custom error page. Notes for other user provided error pages: (1) Unless explicitly coded otherwise, JSPs ignore the HTTP method. JSPs used as error pages must must ensure that they handle any error dispatch as a GET request, regardless of the actual method. (2) By default, the response generated by a Servlet does depend on the HTTP method. Custom Servlets used as error pages must ensure that they handle any error dispatch as a GET request, regardless of the actual method.
- CVE-2026-48961HIGH 7.3Real · low riskEPSS 0%
IO::Compress versions from 2.207 before 2.220 for Perl ship a zipdetails CLI tool that crashes with undefined subroutine on Info-ZIP Unix Extra Field with 8-byte UID or GID. When decode_ux() in bin/zipdetails handles an Info-ZIP Unix Extra Field (tag 0x7875) with UID Size or GID Size set to 8, causing zipdetails to decode an 8-byte UID or GID value, it dispatches through decodeLitteEndian(), which calls a misnamed helper unpackValueQ. The actual function defined in the same file is unpackValue_Q (with underscore); the call raises 'Undefined subroutine &main::unpackValueQ' and the script exits with status 255. Library callers of IO::Compress and IO::Uncompress are not affected; the defect is in the bundled CLI tool.