CVE-2017-5638: Equifax Struts2
Is CVE-2017-5638 real, exploitable, or a false positive? Here's the community verdict.
signals
public sources
Confirmed exploited in the wild. Patch this first, regardless of the base score.
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.
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
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In your experience, is this finding real and exploitable?
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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.
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