U.S. CISA adds Synacor Zimbra Collaboration flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →
| CVE | Vulnerability | CVSS | EPSS | Flags | Affected | Exposure | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2024-45519 | Unauthenticated Command Execution in Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) CVE-2024-45519 is an access-control weakness (CWE-284) in the postjournal service of Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) that allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to execute operating-system commands on the mail server. The postjournal service handles Zimbra's email journaling, and the flaw is reached by sending crafted mail/SMTP traffic to a vulnerable server, with no credentials or user interaction required. Successful exploitation gives the attacker command execution on the ZCS host, typically a foothold for stealing mailbox data and credentials, deploying webshells, or staging broader intrusion and ransomware activity. Any organization running ZCS is in scope, especially internet-exposed mail servers operated by enterprises, hosting/ISP providers, education, and government. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: CISA added the flaw to the KEV catalog on 2024-10-03, and EPSS assigns a 99.9% probability of exploitation within 30 days (100th percentile), though no public PoC is known. Do: Upgrade ZCS to the latest patch release per Synacor's advisory for this CVE, prioritizing internet-facing mail servers, since CISA's KEV required action is to apply vendor mitigations or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable. If patching cannot be done immediately, restrict untrusted network access to the postjournal/SMTP path and treat the host as presumptively compromised because exploitation is already in the wild. Check postjournal logs and unexpected child processes or dropped files on the server for signs of compromise, and re-verify after patching. | 9.8 | 100% | KEV PoC |
| largetens of thousands of internet-exposed Zimbra mail servers (roughly 30,000-50,000 per public internet scans), plus many more firewalled deployments |
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U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds Zimbra Collaboration vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added the Zimbra Collaboration vulnerability CVE-2024-45519 (CVSS score of 10) to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.
This week, Proofpoint cybersecurity researchers reported that threat actors are attempting to exploit a recently disclosed vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-45519, in Synacor’s Zimbra Collaboration.
Starting on September 28, 2024, threat actors have been attempting to exploit the issue to achieve remote code execution on vulnerable instances.
Threat actors started exploring the vulnerability after the cybersecurity firm Project Discovery released technical details of the vulnerability and PoC exploit code.
“Zimbra, a widely used email and collaboration platform, recently released a critical security update addressing a severe vulnerability in its postjournal service. This vulnerability, identified as CVE-2024-45519, allows unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary commands on affected Zimbra installations.” reads a blog post published by Project Discovery. “In this blog post, we delve into the nature of this vulnerability, our journey in analyzing the patch, and the steps we took to exploit it manually. “
The vulnerability CVE-2024-45519 is a remote code execution vulnerability in Zimbra mail servers that was discovered by the security researcher lebr0nli (Alan Li). Versions 8.8.15 Patch 46, 9.0.0 Patch 41, 10.0.9, and 10.1.1 released on September 4, 2024 address the vulnerability.
The attackers spoofed Gmail, sending emails with base64 strings to be executed by Zimbra servers. The same server is used to send exploit emails and host second-stage payloads. The experts have yet to identy the threat actor behind this campaign.
“Beginning on September 28, @Proofpoint began observing attempts to exploit CVE-2024-45519, a remote code execution vulnerability in Zimbra mail servers. The emails spoofing Gmail were sent to bogus addresses in the CC fields in an attempt for Zimbra servers to parse and execute them as commands. The addresses contained base64 strings that are executed with the sh utility.” warned Proofpoint on X. “For unknown reasons, the threat actor is using the same server to send the exploit emails and host second-stage payloads. The activity is unattributed at this time.”
Some emails from the same sender used CC’d addresses to attempt building a webshell on vulnerable Zimbra servers. The attackers wrapped the full CC list in a string, and concatenating the base64-encoded blobs, they decode to a command to write a webshell to the following URL: /jetty/webapps/zimbraAdmin/public/jsp/zimbraConfig.jsp.
Once the webshell is deployed, it listens for connections with a specific JSESSIONID cookie and parses the JACTION cookie for base64 commands. The webshell can execute commands or download and run files via a socket connection.
According to Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01: Reducing the Significant Risk of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities, FCEB agencies have to address the identified vulnerabilities by the due date to protect their networks against attacks exploiting the flaws in the catalog.
Experts also recommend private organizations review the Catalog and address the vulnerabilities in their infrastructure.
CISA orders federal agencies to fix this vulnerability by October 24, 2024.
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