CVE-2025-40548
Published: 18 November 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-40548 is a critical-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Solarwinds Serv-U. Its CVSS base score is 9.1 (Critical).
Operationally, ranked at the 17.7th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-197929
Vulnerability details
A missing validation process exists in Serv U when abused, could give a malicious actor with access to admin privileges the ability to execute code. This issue requires administrative privileges to abuse. On Windows deployments, the risk is scored as…
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a medium because services frequently run under less-privileged service accounts by default.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
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.
Policy addresses roles, responsibilities, and privilege management to prevent improper privilege assignments.
Access supervision ensures privileges are assigned and managed without improper escalation or retention.
Assigning group/role memberships and access authorizations (privileges) while reviewing accounts addresses improper privilege management.
Enforces proper privilege management by requiring all decisions through the verified reference monitor.
By mandating division of duties across roles, the control enforces proper privilege management and prevents a single entity from controlling an entire sensitive process.
Implements core proper privilege management by restricting to only required rights.
Policy requires training on privilege management and least privilege, making it harder to exploit improper privilege management weaknesses.
Training covers proper privilege management practices, making incorrect privilege assignments less likely.