Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2024-28986 is a critical-severity Deserialization of Untrusted Data (CWE-502) vulnerability in Solarwinds Web Help Desk. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked in the top 0.3% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
SolarWinds Web Help Desk contains a Java deserialization vulnerability tracked as CVE-2024-28986 that permits remote code execution on the underlying host. The flaw stems from unsafe handling of serialized Java objects and is assigned CWE-502 along with a CVSS 3.1 score of 9.8 reflecting network-accessible attack complexity that is low and requires no user interaction.
An unauthenticated attacker could supply a malicious serialized payload to execute arbitrary commands on the server. Although SolarWinds was unable to reproduce the issue without valid credentials during internal testing, the vendor still treats the vector as potentially unauthenticated and therefore recommends immediate remediation for all deployments.
The official SolarWinds advisory directs customers to apply Web Help Desk 12.8.3 Hotfix 1, available from the vendor support portal. CISA has added the CVE to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, confirming that in-the-wild exploitation has been observed.
The associated EPSS score currently stands at 0.8024 with a recorded peak of 0.8419, indicating sustained and elevated exploitation interest following disclosure.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2024-26048
Vulnerability Data
SolarWinds Web Help Desk was found to be susceptible to a Java Deserialization Remote Code Execution vulnerability that, if exploited, would allow an attacker to run commands on the host machine. While it was reported as an unauthenticated vulnerability, SolarWinds…
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has been unable to reproduce it without authentication after thorough testing. However, out of an abundance of caution, we recommend all Web Help Desk customers apply the patch, which is now available.
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 15 August 2024
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation can uncover deserialization flaws before deployment.
Input validation directly stops deserialization of untrusted data by ensuring inputs are valid before processing.
Engineering principles such as safe deserialization and input sanitization structurally prevent the weakness from being introduced.
Integrity verification tools can detect malformed or tampered serialized data after the fact.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
PR.PS-02 addresses only post-deployment updates/patching and cannot prevent introduction of unsafe deserialization code, yet it can remediate some instances when the flaw exists in outdated libraries or components.
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.
Security testing includes validation of deserialization routines and the use of untrusted data, reducing the likelihood that unsafe object reconstruction will be deployed.
Requiring vetted libraries, regular updates and SAST before release reduces the likelihood that deserialization logic will accept and act on attacker-controlled serialized objects.
Regular scanning of third-party libraries and timely patching reduce the likelihood that unsafe deserialization vulnerabilities remain active.
Mandatory malware scanning of data received over networks or storage media intercepts malicious serialized payloads before they are deserialized by the target application.