Threats / Adobe / CVE-2023-29298
CVE-2023-29298
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-08-04
Adobe ColdFusion vulnerability
Adobe ColdFusion contains an improper access control vulnerability enabling security feature bypass.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
CWE-284 improper access control in ColdFusion allows attackers to circumvent security mechanisms. High EPSS score and active exploitation indicate immediate risk to unpatched deployments.
CISA KEV Yes · 2023-07-205EPSS 0.99757 (verify live)6CVSS 7.53CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Impact: partial4Exploit Public PoC / detection · nuclei template13
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
470 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-07-20).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.99757 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N) · Affected: Adobe, ColdFusion. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CNA-assigned (CVE.org), version 3.1, set at disclosure.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-284 Improper Access Control — weakness family: Authorization / access control.CWE — CNA-assigned (CVE.org); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Technical Impact: partialCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 8 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
Public exploit available
Public exploit tooling is catalogued for this CVE (a public proof-of-concept / detection template). Catalog entries: nuclei template. We link the catalog page(s) only — no payload or code is hosted or restated here.Link, never host — the catalog page is the source; basicsecurity.net does not redistribute payloads.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I identify that ColdFusion's access control mechanisms can be bypassed through improper validation.
Business
Unauthorized access to protected ColdFusion resources and administrative functions becomes possible.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I exploit the bypass to access restricted application features or data without proper authentication.
Business
Confidentiality and integrity of sensitive business data hosted on ColdFusion servers is compromised.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I leverage access to modify application behavior or extract credentials for lateral movement.
Business
Operational continuity is threatened; incident response and remediation costs escalate with wider system compromise.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05