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Multiple Critical Vulnerabilities in SolarWinds Web Help Desk

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3 unique sources, 8 articles

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SolarWinds has released security updates to address multiple critical vulnerabilities in SolarWinds Web Help Desk, including CVE-2025-40536, CVE-2025-40537, CVE-2025-40551, CVE-2025-40552, CVE-2025-40553, and CVE-2025-40554. These vulnerabilities could result in authentication bypass and remote code execution (RCE). CVE-2025-40551 is actively exploited in attacks and has been added to CISA's KEV catalog. SolarWinds Web Help Desk is used by more than 300,000 customers worldwide, including government agencies, large corporations, healthcare organizations, and educational institutions. SolarWinds has previously released a third patch to address a critical deserialization vulnerability (CVE-2025-26399) in Web Help Desk 12.8.7 and earlier versions. This flaw allows unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) on affected systems. The vulnerability was discovered by an anonymous researcher and reported through Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI). The flaw is a patch bypass for CVE-2024-28988, which itself was a bypass for CVE-2024-28986. The original vulnerability was exploited in the wild and added to the KEV catalog by CISA. SolarWinds advises users to update to version 12.8.7 HF1 to mitigate the risk. SolarWinds Web Help Desk is a help desk and ticketing suite used by medium-to-large organizations for IT support request tracking, workflow automation, asset management, and compliance assurance. The vulnerability affects the AjaxProxy component, and the hotfix requires replacing specific JAR files. Microsoft has revealed that it observed a multi-stage intrusion that involved the threat actors exploiting internet-exposed SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) instances to obtain initial access and move laterally across the organization's network to other high-value assets. The attackers used legitimate components associated with Zoho ManageEngine to enable persistent remote control over the infected system. They enumerated sensitive domain users and groups, established persistence via reverse SSH and RDP access, and conducted a DCSync attack to request password hashes and other sensitive information from an Active Directory (AD) database. Threat actors have been exploiting CVE-2025-40551 and CVE-2025-26399 to deploy legitimate tools for malicious purposes, such as Zoho ManageEngine and Velociraptor. The attackers targeted at least three organizations and leveraged Cloudflare tunnels for persistence. The malicious activity was spotted by researchers at Huntress Security and is believed to be part of a campaign that started on January 16. The attackers used Velociraptor for command and control (C2) and Zoho ManageEngine for remote monitoring and management. The attackers installed the Zoho ManageEngine Assist agent via an MSI file fetched from the Catbox file-hosting platform and configured the tool for unattended access. They registered the compromised host to a Zoho Assist account tied to an anonymous Proton Mail address. The attackers used Velociraptor as a command-and-control (C2) framework that communicates with attackers via Cloudflare Workers. The attackers used an outdated version of Velociraptor (0.73.4), which is vulnerable to a privilege escalation flaw. The attackers installed Cloudflared from Cloudflare's official GitHub repository as a secondary tunnel-based access channel for C2 redundancy. The attackers disabled Windows Defender and Firewall via registry modifications to ensure that fetching additional payloads would not be blocked. The attackers downloaded a fresh copy of the VS Code binary approximately a second after disabling Defender. System administrators are recommended to upgrade SolarWinds Web Help Desk to version 2026.1 or later, remove public internet access to SolarWinds WHD admin interfaces, and reset all credentials associated with the product.

Timeline

  1. 09.02.2026 16:42 2 articles · 8h ago

    Microsoft details multi-stage attacks exploiting SolarWinds Web Help Desk

    Threat actors have been exploiting CVE-2025-40551 and CVE-2025-26399 to deploy legitimate tools for malicious purposes, such as Zoho ManageEngine and Velociraptor. The attackers targeted at least three organizations and leveraged Cloudflare tunnels for persistence. The malicious activity was spotted by researchers at Huntress Security and is believed to be part of a campaign that started on January 16. The attackers used Velociraptor for command and control (C2) and Zoho ManageEngine for remote monitoring and management. The attackers installed the Zoho ManageEngine Assist agent via an MSI file fetched from the Catbox file-hosting platform and configured the tool for unattended access. They registered the compromised host to a Zoho Assist account tied to an anonymous Proton Mail address. The attackers used Velociraptor as a command-and-control (C2) framework that communicates with attackers via Cloudflare Workers. The attackers used an outdated version of Velociraptor (0.73.4), which is vulnerable to a privilege escalation flaw. The attackers installed Cloudflared from Cloudflare's official GitHub repository as a secondary tunnel-based access channel for C2 redundancy. The attackers disabled Windows Defender and Firewall via registry modifications to ensure that fetching additional payloads would not be blocked. The attackers downloaded a fresh copy of the VS Code binary approximately a second after disabling Defender. System administrators are recommended to upgrade SolarWinds Web Help Desk to version 2026.1 or later, remove public internet access to SolarWinds WHD admin interfaces, and reset all credentials associated with the product.

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  2. 29.01.2026 11:00 6 articles · 11d ago

    SolarWinds releases updates for four critical Web Help Desk flaws

    Threat actors have been exploiting CVE-2025-40551 and CVE-2025-26399 to deploy legitimate tools for malicious purposes, such as Zoho ManageEngine and Velociraptor. The attackers targeted at least three organizations and leveraged Cloudflare tunnels for persistence. The malicious activity was spotted by researchers at Huntress Security and is believed to be part of a campaign that started on January 16. The attackers used Velociraptor for command and control (C2) and Zoho ManageEngine for remote monitoring and management. The attackers installed the Zoho ManageEngine Assist agent via an MSI file fetched from the Catbox file-hosting platform and configured the tool for unattended access. They registered the compromised host to a Zoho Assist account tied to an anonymous Proton Mail address. The attackers used Velociraptor as a command-and-control (C2) framework that communicates with attackers via Cloudflare Workers. The attackers used an outdated version of Velociraptor (0.73.4), which is vulnerable to a privilege escalation flaw. The attackers installed Cloudflared from Cloudflare's official GitHub repository as a secondary tunnel-based access channel for C2 redundancy. The attackers disabled Windows Defender and Firewall via registry modifications to ensure that fetching additional payloads would not be blocked. The attackers downloaded a fresh copy of the VS Code binary approximately a second after disabling Defender. System administrators are recommended to upgrade SolarWinds Web Help Desk to version 2026.1 or later, remove public internet access to SolarWinds WHD admin interfaces, and reset all credentials associated with the product.

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  3. 23.09.2025 15:46 3 articles · 4mo ago

    SolarWinds releases hotfix for critical deserialization vulnerability in Web Help Desk

    The vulnerability is the third attempt to address the original flaw CVE-2024-28986. SolarWinds Web Help Desk is used by medium-to-large organizations for IT support request tracking, workflow automation, asset management, and compliance assurance. The vulnerability affects the AjaxProxy component and is caused by unsafe deserialization handling. The hotfix requires installing Web Help Desk version 12.8.7 and replacing specific JAR files.

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