Description

ColdFusion is affected by an Improper Authentication vulnerability that could result in privilege escalation. An attacker could leverage this vulnerability to gain limited read and write access. The vulnerable component is restricted to an administrative network zone by default. Exploitation of this issue does not require user interaction. Scope is changed.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.1",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-03T16:18:23.383Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-03T16:18:23.383Z",
  "executiveSummary": "An Improper Authentication vulnerability has been identified in ColdFusion, exposing affected environments to unauthorized privilege escalation. This security flaw resides within a component that is restricted to an administrative network zone by default. A remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability without requiring any user interaction, facilitating a modified impact scope across the host system.\nSuccessful exploitation enables the attacker to bypass authentication controls and elevate privileges, ultimately gaining limited read and write access to the affected system. Because the exploitation boundary shifts and the authorization scope is changed, the vulnerability poses a significant threat to the confidentiality and integrity of the underlying application data, potentially serving as a stepping stone for deeper system compromise within the administrative segment. Organizations utilizing ColdFusion must ensure strict access controls are maintained over administrative interfaces to mitigate the risk of unauthorized lateral movement or privilege abuse.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of this vulnerability lies in the improper authentication mechanism implemented within a specific administrative component of the ColdFusion application. Improper authentication occurs when an application fails to adequately validate the identity of a user or service attempting to access restricted functions. In this instance, the vulnerable administrative component lacks the necessary validation controls, allowing incoming requests to bypass standard security checks. Because the system does not properly assert the identity of the requester, an unauthenticated actor can craft malicious inputs that the application treats as trusted, leading directly to unauthorized privilege escalation.\nThe attack flow is streamlined by the fact that exploitation requires absolutely no user interaction. An attacker must first establish network connectivity to the vulnerable component. By default, this component is restricted to an administrative network zone, meaning the primary attack vector resides within the internal network or via a compromised administrative hop. Once network access to the administrative zone is established, the attacker transmits targeted network packets designed to interact with the flawed authentication logic. The application processes these requests without verifying credentials, granting the attacker elevated privileges within the context of the ColdFusion service.\nA defining characteristic of this security issue is that the authorization scope is changed. A change in scope implies that the impact of the vulnerability extends beyond the security domain of the vulnerable application itself to other adjacent systems or resources. By exploiting this flaw, the attacker is able to abuse the trusted state of the administrative component to perform actions on resources managed by different security authorities. This capability translates into limited read and write access, allowing the attacker to retrieve sensitive system configurations or modify critical files.\nThe post-exploitation impact of gaining limited read and write access inside an administrative zone is substantial. Attackers can leverage write capabilities to modify application behaviors or attempt to upload unauthorized scripts, while read capabilities can be used to extract sensitive environment variables or database connection strings. Because the vulnerability can be exploited completely silently without user intervention, detection relies heavily on robust network logging and anomaly detection within the administrative network segment. Security administrators must recognize that relying solely on default zone restrictions is insufficient if the internal perimeter is breached."
}