Threats / Zoho / CVE-2019-8394
CVE-2019-8394
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-09-19
Zoho ManageEngine vulnerability
Zoho ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus allows remote file upload through login page customization, enabling arbitrary code execution without authentication.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can upload malicious files via the login customization feature, leading to remote code execution on affected ServiceDesk Plus instances. Active exploitation in the wild increases risk.
CISA KEV Yes · 2021-11-034EPSS 0.63336 (verify live)5CVSS 7.5 (CISA)3CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: partial3Exploit Weaponized · public exploit · Metasploit module9
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
2 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 2021-11-03).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.63336 — 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:N/I:H/A:N) · Affected: Zoho, ManageEngine. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-434 Unrestricted File Upload — weakness family: Path traversal / file.CWE assignment from the public NVD record (may be stale); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · 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 990 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 functional/weaponized public exploit). Catalog entries: Metasploit module. 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 the login customization endpoint as accessible without authentication.
Business
Attackers bypass all access controls by exploiting an unauthenticated upload vector.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I upload a malicious file with executable content to the customization upload handler.
Business
The organization's file validation fails to prevent dangerous file types from being stored.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I trigger execution of the uploaded file through the web application.
Business
Arbitrary code runs with the privileges of the ServiceDesk Plus application process.
4
Data at risk — exfiltration narrative 4
Attacker
I establish persistent access and move laterally within the network.
Business
The help desk system becomes a beachhead for full infrastructure 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
Coverage & confidence
— what we know, and what we don’tEstablished (cited)
Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden
Disclosure & credit2
Catalogued by mitreCNA
Credited with finding itNo finder is named in the public CVE record or the scanned vendor advisory — attribution scoped to the sources checked.
Found an error? Propose a correction.
A correction is a cited counter-claim — it must cite a source,
gets reviewed by a second human, and is never auto-applied. See the
correction convention and our identity
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