Security Resilience

CVE-2023-22232

Adobe Connect 11.0 – 11.4.5

Public PoCHigh EPSS
Published
17 February 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.3
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
EPSS Score 0.83 99.7th percentile
Risk Priority 70 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-22232 is a medium-severity Improper Access Control (CWE-284) vulnerability in Adobe Connect. Its CVSS base score is 5.3 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked in the top 0.3% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary

Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.

Adobe Connect versions 11.4.5 and earlier as well as 12.1.5 and earlier are affected by an Improper Access Control vulnerability that results in a security feature bypass. The flaw carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 5.3 and is tracked under CWE-284. Exploitation requires no user interaction and can be performed over the network without authentication, allowing an attacker to affect the integrity of a minor feature.

An unauthenticated remote attacker can leverage the weakness to bypass intended access controls and alter limited integrity properties within the application. Because the attack does not depend on user interaction or credentials, it can be launched directly against exposed Adobe Connect instances.

The official Adobe security bulletin APSB23-05, available at helpx.adobe.com/security/products/connect/apsb23-05.html, addresses the issue and supplies remediation guidance for affected Connect releases. Public exploit references, including a local file disclosure report on Packet Storm, align with the same advisory.

The associated EPSS score has remained elevated, reaching a peak of 0.8847 and currently sitting at 0.8427.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Adobe Connect versions 11.4.5 (and earlier), 12.1.5 (and earlier) are affected by an Improper Access Control vulnerability that could result in a Security feature bypass. An attacker could leverage this vulnerability to impact the integrity of a minor feature. Exploitation…

more

of this issue does not require user interaction.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-54038Same product: Adobe Connect
CVE-2024-45133Same vendor: Adobe
CVE-2023-22250Same vendor: Adobe
CVE-2025-27207Same vendor: Adobe
CVE-2024-43716Same vendor: Adobe
CVE-2025-43586Same vendor: Adobe
CVE-2025-24424Same vendor: Adobe
CVE-2024-34112Same vendor: Adobe
CVE-2024-45118Same vendor: Adobe
CVE-2025-27206Same vendor: Adobe

Affected Assets

adobe
connect
11.0 — 11.4.5 · 12.0 — 12.1.5

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-284

The access control policy and procedures directly mandate and enforce proper access control mechanisms across the organization.

addresses: CWE-284

Device lock enforces restricted access until re-authentication, directly reducing unauthorized use of active sessions.

addresses: CWE-284

Supervision and review of access control activities directly detects and remediates improper access configurations or usages.

addresses: CWE-284

Explicitly identifying and documenting actions permitted without identification or authentication enforces proper access control boundaries by defining justified exceptions.

addresses: CWE-284

By automatically labeling outputs with security attributes, the control supports attribute-based enforcement and reduces exploitability of improper access control weaknesses.

addresses: CWE-284

Associating and retaining security attributes with data directly supports enforcement of access control decisions across storage, processing, and transmission.

addresses: CWE-284

Requiring prior authorization for each remote access type prevents improper access control over remote connections.

addresses: CWE-284

Requiring authorization of wireless access before allowing connections enforces proper access control for this access method.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

blocks

A.5.1 only requires that an information security policy and topic-specific policies (including on access control) exist and are reviewed; it does not itself enforce, implement or act on any access restriction, so the weakness can still be exploited (per the owner's explicit rule that governance/dependency clauses score none on effect verbs).

blocks

A.5.15 directly mandates determining requirements, defining/implementing topic-specific access control policy+rules (with explicit references to 8.3, 5.16, 5.18), and enforcing authorized access while preventing unauthorized access, which squarely stops exploitation of most CWE-284 instances; the bounded remainder is the physical slice (explicitly delegated to 7.2-7.4) plus any second-order defects like path traversal that are not authorization decisions.

blocks

A.5.16's identity lifecycle (unique binding, timely disable/remove, no duplicates, oversight of shared/non-human) directly stops most improper access by ensuring the actor in an access decision is correctly identified and authorized; the bounded remainder is non-identity mechanisms in CWE-284 such as path traversal or CSRF that do not turn on actor identity at all.

blocks

A.5.18 directly governs the provisioning, review, adjustment and timely revocation of both physical and logical access rights per business rules, segregation of duties and risk-evaluated changes/terminations; this stops most unauthorized-actor exploitation paths named by CWE-284, with a bounded remainder (e.g. path-traversal or CSRF cases that are not authorization decisions at all)

blocks

A.5.2 defines and assigns roles/responsibilities for protection of information and risk acceptance; it does not itself enforce any access decision and cannot stop exploitation of improper access control (per the owner's labeling rule: governance/dependency clauses do not score on prevent/mitigate verbs)

finds

Ongoing audits and performance reviews of suppliers detect and correct situations where access controls or privilege assignments are weaker than contractually required, limiting an attacker's ability to exploit improper access control in the supplier's environment.

Hardening callouts derived

DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-284, a pillar-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-749, CWE-1220.

References