CISA Warns of CentreStack's Hard-Coded MachineKey Vulnerability Enabling RCE Attacks
Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →
| CVE | Vulnerability | CVSS | EPSS | Flags | Affected | Exposure | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2025-30406 | Hard-coded machineKey enables unauthenticated deserialization RCE in Gladinet CentreStack and Triofox Gladinet CentreStack (and, per CISA, the companion product Triofox) ships with a hard-coded ASP.NET machineKey in the portal's web.config, which is used to protect ViewState and similar serialized data. An attacker who knows this fixed key can craft a serialized payload and submit it to the network-facing portal, where server-side deserialization executes it, yielding unauthenticated remote code execution (CVSS 9.8, no privileges or user interaction required). Successful RCE gives attackers full control of the file-sharing server (high confidentiality, integrity and availability impact); public reporting indicates attackers have abused the flaw to gain unauthorized access and install remote access tools. Anyone running the affected CentreStack builds is exposed, with self-hosted deployments at SMBs and MSP-hosted environments the typical footprint. The flaw was exploited in the wild in March 2025, was added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2025-04-08, and carries an EPSS of 94.3% (100th percentile). Do: Upgrade CentreStack to 16.4.10315.56368 or later, and apply the equivalent vendor fix for Triofox; as an interim mitigation, administrators can delete the hard-coded machineKey defined in portal\web.config so it is regenerated. Because the flaw is actively exploited, review portals for signs of compromise (unexpected accounts, unfamiliar processes or remote access tools) and, for federal agencies, follow the applicable BOD 22-01 required actions. | 9.8 | 94% | KEV |
| moderateon the order of thousands of internet-exposed instances (self-hosted file-sharing/MFT portals, largely at SMBs and MSPs); no public install counts in the… |
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Ravie LakshmananApr 09, 2025Application Security / Vulnerability
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added a critical security flaw impacting Gladinet CentreStack to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation in the wild.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-30406 (CVSS score: 9.0), concerns a case of a hard-coded cryptographic key that could be abused to achieve remote code execution. It has been addressed in version 16.4.10315.56368 released on April 3, 2025.
"Gladinet CentreStack contains a use of hard-coded cryptographic key vulnerability in the way that the application manages keys used for ViewState integrity verification," CISA said. "Successful exploitation allows an attacker to forge ViewState payloads for server-side deserialization, allowing for remote code execution."
Specifically, the shortcoming is rooted in the use of a hard-code "machineKey" in the IIS web.config file, which enables threat actors with knowledge of "machineKey" to serialize a payload for subsequent server-side deserialization in order to achieve remote code execution.
There are currently no details on how the vulnerability is being exploited, the identity of the threat actors exploiting it, and who may be the targets of these attacks. That said, a description of the security defect on CVE.org states that CVE-2025-30406 was exploited in the wild in March 2025, indicating its use as a zero-day.
Gladinet, in an advisory, has also acknowledged that "exploitation has been observed in the wild," urging customers to apply the fixes as soon as possible. If immediate patching is not an option, it's advised to rotate the machineKey value as a temporary mitigation.
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