The vulnerabilities could be used by attackers to gain access to services and data. They can also be used to execute arbitrary commands and cause a denial of service. Confidentiality, integrity and availability are all impacted. The only solution is to upgrade immediately.

Description In its security release of 13 May 2025, Zoom addressed two vulnerabilities that could be exploited for privilege escalation: • CVE-2025-30663, a time-of-check time-of-use race condition affecting some Zoom Workplace Apps. If successfully exploited, an authenticated user could conduct an escalation of privilege via local access. • CVE-2025-30664 is an improper neutralization of special elements flaw affecting some Zoom Workplace Apps. Successful exploitation could allow an authenticated user to conduct an escalation of privilege via local access.

Risks

FortiOS, FortiProxy, and FortiSwitchManager are core components of Fortinet’s network security and management infrastructure, which provide firewalling, proxy services, and centralized switch management.

CVE-2025-22252 is a missing authentication vulnerability that allows an unauthenticated attacker with knowledge of an existing admin account to access the device as a valid admin. Exploitation of this flaw could grant attackers unauthorized control over network infrastructure, threatening confidentiality through data exposure, integrity via configuration tampering, and availability by disrupting critical services.

Description

CVE-2025-22252 is a missing authentication for critical function vulnerability in devices configured to use a remote TACACS+ server for authentication configured to use ASCII authentication. It may allow an attacker with knowledge of an existing admin account to access the device as a valid admin via an authentication bypass, potentially resulting in complete system compromise, data theft and service disruption.

Microsoft discovered critical vulnerability CVE-2025-27920 affecting the messaging application Output Messenger. Microsoft additionally observed exploitation of the vulnerability since April 2024. According to Microsoft, the attacker needs to be authenticated, although the Output Messenger advisory indicates that privileges are not required to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker could upload malicious files into the server’s startup directory by exploiting this directory traversal vulnerability. This allows an attacker to gain indiscriminate access to the communications of every user, steal sensitive data and impersonate users, possibly leading to operational disruptions, unauthorized access to internal systems, and widespread credential compromise.

Abstract IBM WebSphere Application Server is vulnerable to server-side request forgery (CVE-2025-27907 CVSS 4.1)

Download Description

PH65941 resolves the following problem:

ERROR DESCRIPTION: IBM WebSphere Application Server is vulnerable to server-side request forgery (CVE-2025-27907 CVSS 4.1)

PROBLEM SUMMARY: IBM WebSphere Application Server is vulnerable to server-side request forgery (CVE-2025-27907 CVSS 4.1)

PROBLEM CONCLUSION: Confidential for CVE-2025-27907.

The fix for this APAR is targeted for inclusion in 8.5.5.28, 9.0.5.24.

For more information, see Recommended Updates for WebSphere Application Server: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/715553

Prerequisites None

Problems Solved PH65941

Source: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7231182

Numerous law enforcement agencies worldwide have been affected by a zero-day exploit (path traversal) in reconnaissance software. This apparently also includes body cameras used by special forces, surveillance equipment, and police drones.

The „Media Relay Service (MRS)“ (web server) software for reconnaissance devices from the Israeli manufacturer Infodraw is affected by a serious security vulnerability (Path Traversal Vulnerability). Security experts from Mint Secure discovered the vulnerability and initially reported it to the manufacturer and – due to a lack of response – subsequently to operators and CERTs worldwide in order to rule out further risks and responsibly disclose the vulnerability. This blog post describes technical details, cases from various countries, and the approach behind the discovery. Recommendations for affected organizations are also provided.

• CVE-2025-24054 is a vulnerability related to NTLM hash disclosure via spoofing, which can be exploited using a maliciously crafted .library-ms file. Active exploitation in the wild has been observed since March 19, 2025, potentially allowing attackers to leak NTLM hashes or user passwords and compromise systems. Although Microsoft released a patch on March 11, 2025, threat actors already had over a week to develop and deploy exploits before the vulnerability began to be actively abused.

• Around March 20–21, 2025, a campaign targeted government and private institutions in Poland and Romania. Attackers used malspam to distribute a Dropbox link containing an archive that exploited multiple known vulnerabilities, including CVE-2025-24054, to harvest NTLMv2-SSP hashes.

  • Initial reports suggested that exploitation occurred once the .library-ms file was unzipped. However, Microsoft’s patch documentation indicated that the vulnerability could even be triggered with minimal user interaction, such as right-clicking, dragging and dropping, or simply navigating to the folder containing the malicious file. This exploit appears to be a variant of a previously patched vulnerability, CVE-2024-43451, as both share several similarities.

For more details: CVE-2025-24054, NTLM Exploit in the Wild

PoC for CVE-2025-22457

A remote unauthenticated stack based buffer overflow affecting Ivanti Connect Secure, Pulse Connect Secure, Ivanti Policy Secure, and ZTA Gateways

Overview

This is a proof of concept exploit to demonstrate exploitation of CVE-2025-22457. For a complete technical analysis of the vulnerability and exploitation strategy, please see our Rapid7 Analysis here:

https://attackerkb.com/topics/0ybGQIkHzR/cve-2025-22457/rapid7-analysis

Available at https://github.com/sfewer-r7/CVE-2025-22457

Suspected China-Nexus Threat Actor Actively Exploiting Critical Ivanti Connect Secure Vulnerability (CVE-2025-22457) | Google Cloud Blog

Written by: John Wolfram, Michael Edie, Jacob Thompson, Matt Lin, Josh Murchie

On Thursday, April 3, 2025, Ivanti disclosed a critical security vulnerability, CVE-2025-22457, impacting Ivanti Connect Secure (“ICS”) VPN appliances version 22.7R2.5 and earlier. CVE-2025-22457 is a buffer overflow vulnerability, and successful exploitation would result in remote code execution. Mandiant and Ivanti have identified evidence of active exploitation in the wild against ICS 9.X (end of life) and 22.7R2.5 and earlier versions. Ivanti and Mandiant encourage all customers to upgrade as soon as possible. 

The earliest evidence of observed CVE-2025-22457 exploitation occurred in mid-March 2025. Following successful exploitation, we observed the deployment of two newly identified malware families, the TRAILBLAZE in-memory only dropper and the BRUSHFIRE passive backdoor. Additionally, deployment of the previously reported SPAWN ecosystem of malware attributed to UNC5221 was also observed. UNC5221 is a suspected China-nexus espionage actor that we previously observed conducting zero-day exploitation of edge devices dating back to 2023.

A patch for CVE-2025-22457 was released in ICS 22.7R2.6 on February 11, 2025. The vulnerability is a buffer overflow with a limited character space, and therefore it was initially believed to be a low-risk denial-of-service vulnerability. We assess it is likely the threat actor studied the patch for the vulnerability in ICS 22.7R2.6 and uncovered through a complicated process, it was possible to exploit 22.7R2.5 and earlier to achieve remote code execution.

Ivanti released patches for the exploited vulnerability and Ivanti customers are urged to follow the actions in the Security Advisory to secure their systems as soon as possible.

Post-Exploitation Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

Following successful exploitation, Mandiant observed the deployment of two newly identified malware families tracked as TRAILBLAZE and BRUSHFIRE through a shell script dropper. Mandiant has also observed the deployment of the SPAWN ecosystem of malware. Additionally, similar to previously observed behavior, the actor attempted to modify the Integrity Checker Tool (ICT) in an attempt to evade detection.  

Shell-script Dropper

Following successful exploitation of CVE-2025-22457, Mandiant observed a shell script being leveraged that executes the TRAILBLAZE dropper. This dropper injects the BRUSHFIRE passive backdoor into a running /home/bin/web process. The first stage begins by searching for a /home/bin/web process that is a child process of another /home/bin/web process (the point of this appears to be to inject into the web process that is actually listening for connections). It then creates the the following files and associated content:

• /tmp/.p: contains the PID of the /home/bin/web process.

• /tmp/.m: contains a memory map of that process (human-readable).

• /tmp/.w: contains the base address of the web binary from that process

• /tmp/.s: contains the base address of libssl.so from that process

• /tmp/.r: contains the BRUSHFIRE passive backdoor

• /tmp/.i: contains the TRAILBLAZE dropper

The shell script then executes /tmp/.i, which is the second stage in-memory only dropper tracked as TRAILBLAZE. It then deletes all of the temporary files previously created (except for /tmp/.p), as well as the contents of the /data/var/cores directory. Next, all child processes of the /home/bin/web process are killed and the /tmp/.p file is deleted. All of this behavior is non-persistent, and the dropper will need to be re-executed if the system or process is rebooted.

TRAILBLAZE

TRAILBLAZE is an in-memory only dropper written in bare C that uses raw syscalls and is designed to be as minimal as possible, likely to ensure it can fit within the shell script as Base64. TRAILBLAZE injects a hook into the identified /home/bin/web process. It will then inject the BRUSHFIRE passive backdoor into a code cave inside that process.

BRUSHFIRE

BRUSHFIRE is a passive backdoor written in bare C that acts as an SSL_read hook. It first executes the original SSL_read function, and checks to see if the returned data begins with a specific string. If the data begins with the string, it will XOR decrypt then execute shellcode contained in the data. If the received shellcode returns a value, the backdoor will call SSL_write to send the value back.

SPAWNSLOTH

As detailed in our previous blog post, SPAWNSLOTH acts as a log tampering component tied to the SPAWNSNAIL backdoor. It targets the dslogserver process to disable both local logging and remote syslog forwarding.

SPAWNSNARE

SPAWNSNARE is a utility that is written in C and targets Linux. It can be used to extract the uncompressed linux kernel image (vmlinux) into a file and encrypt it using AES without the need for any command line tools.

SPAWNWAVE

SPAWNWAVE is an evolved version of SPAWNANT that combines capabilities from other members of the SPAWN* malware ecosystem. SPAWNWAVE overlaps with the publicly reported SPAWNCHIMERA and RESURGE malware families.

Attribution

Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) attributes the exploitation of CVE-2025-22457 and the subsequent deployment of the SPAWN ecosystem of malware to the suspected China-nexus espionage actor UNC5221. GTIG has previously reported UNC5221 conducting zero-day exploitation of CVE-2025-0282, as well as the exploitation CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887. 

Furthermore, GTIG has also previously observed UNC5221 conducting zero-day exploitation of CVE-2023-4966, impacting NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway appliances. UNC5221 has targeted a wide range of countries and verticals during their operations, and has leveraged an extensive set of tooling, spanning passive backdoors to trojanized legitimate components on various edge appliances. 

GTIG assesses that UNC5221 will continue pursuing zero-day exploitation of edge devices based on their consistent history of success and aggressive operational tempo. Additionally, as noted in our prior blog post detailing CVE-2025-0282 exploitation, GTIG has observed UNC5221 leveraging an obfuscation network of compromised Cyberoam appliances, QNAP devices, and ASUS routers to mask their true source during intrusion operations.

Conclusion

This latest activity from UNC5221 underscores the ongoing sophisticated threats targeting edge devices globally. This campaign, exploiting the n-day vulnerability CVE-2025-22457, also highlights the persistent focus of actors like UNC5221 on edge devices, leveraging deep device knowledge and adding to their history of using both zero-day and now n-day flaws. This activity aligns with the broader strategy GTIG has observed among suspected China-nexus espionage groups who invest significantly in exploits and custom malware for critical edge infrastructure.

Recommendations

Mandiant recommends organizations immediately apply the available patch by upgrading Ivanti Connect Secure (ICS) appliances to version 22.7R2.6 or later to address CVE-2025-22457. Additionally organizations should use the external and internal Integrity Checker Tool (“ICT”) and contact Ivanti Support if suspicious activity is identified. To supplement this, defenders should actively monitor for core dumps related to the web process, investigate ICT statedump files, and conduct anomaly detection of client TLS certificates presented to the appliance.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Daniel Spicer and the rest of the team at Ivanti for their continued partnership and support in this investigation. Additionally, this analysis would not have been possible without the assistance from analysts across Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant’s FLARE, we would like to specifically thank Christopher Gardner and Dhanesh Kizhakkinan of FLARE for their support.

Indicators of Compromise

To assist the security community in hunting and identifying activity outlined in this blog post, we have included indicators of compromise (IOCs) in a GTI Collection for registered users.

YARA Rules

rule M_APT_Installer_SPAWNANT_1
{ 
    meta: 
        author = "Mandiant" 
        description = "Detects SPAWNANT. SPAWNANT is an 
Installer targeting Ivanti devices. Its purpose is to persistently 
install other malware from the SPAWN family (SPAWNSNAIL, 
SPAWNMOLE) as well as drop additional webshells on the box." 

    strings: 
        $s1 = "dspkginstall" ascii fullword
        $s2 = "vsnprintf" ascii fullword
        $s3 = "bom_files" ascii fullword
        $s4 = "do-install" ascii
        $s5 = "ld.so.preload" ascii
        $s6 = "LD_PRELOAD" ascii
        $s7 = "scanner.py" ascii

    condition: 
        uint32(0) == 0x464c457f and 5 of ($s*)
}

rule M_Utility_SPAWNSNARE_1 {
    meta:
         author = "Mandiant"
        description = "SPAWNSNARE is a utility written in C that targets 
Linux systems by extracting the uncompressed Linux kernel image 
into a file and encrypting it with AES."

    strings:
        $s1 = "\x00extract_vmlinux\x00"
        $s2 = "\x00encrypt_file\x00"
        $s3 = "\x00decrypt_file\x00"
        $s4 = "\x00lbb_main\x00"
        $s5 = "\x00busybox\x00"
        $s6 = "\x00/etc/busybox.conf\x00"

    condition:
        uint32(0) == 0x464c457f
        and all of them

}

rule M_APT_Utility_SPAWNSLOTH_2
{ 
    meta: 
        author = "Mandiant" 
        description = "Hunting rule to identify strings found in SPAWNSLOTH"

    strings: 
        $dslog = "dslogserver" ascii fullword
        $hook1 = "g_do_syslog_servers_exist" ascii fullword
        $hook2 = "ZN5DSLog4File3addEPKci" ascii fullword
        $hook3 = "funchook" ascii fullword

    condition: 
        uint32(0) == 0x464c457f and all of them
}

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• Is The Sofistication In The Room With Us? - X-Forwarded-For and Ivanti Connect Secure