# CVE-2018-17431: Comodo UTM Firewall - RCE

> Live exploitation tracking for CVE-2018-17431 by the CrowdSec Live Exploit Tracker, built from real-world attack data crowdsourced from CrowdSec's global network.

Page: https://tracker.crowdsec.net/cves/CVE-2018-17431

## Key facts

- **Exploitation phase:** Limited Exploitation. The vulnerability is known but shows very limited attacker interest or exploitation activity.
- **CVSS score:** 9.8
- **Public exploit available:** Yes
- **Affected products:** Comodo UTM
- **Weaknesses:** CWE-287 (Improper Authentication)
- **Tags:** enterprise_software, firewall

## Description

Web Console in Comodo UTM Firewall before 2.7.0 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code without authentication via a crafted URL.

## CrowdSec analysis

[CVE-2018-17431](https://euvd.enisa.europa.eu/vulnerability/CVE-2018-17431) is a critical vulnerability in the Comodo UTM Firewall web console that allows unauthenticated remote code execution via specially crafted URLs.

CrowdSec has been tracking this vulnerability and its exploits since 3rd of April 2025.

CrowdSec network observations suggest that most exploitation of CVE-2018-17431 involves focused reconnaissance to identify viable targets. Attackers typically tailor their campaigns based on system exposure and configuration. It is unlikely that a given attack is accidental.
CrowdSec network telemetry also shows that exploitation of CVE-2018-17431 has significantly declined over the past week. Attack volumes are well below the long-term average, suggesting attackers are rapidly losing interest. The vulnerability appears to be falling out of active use across most threat landscapes.

Observed exploitation patterns are focused on URLs containing `/manage/webshell/u`.

## Timeline

- 2019-01-29: CVE Published. CVE-2018-17431 is published to NVD.
- 2025-04-03: Rule Released. CrowdSec releases a rule to detect CVE-2018-17431 exploitation attempts against the CrowdSec Network.
- 2025-04-07: CrowdSec First Seen. CrowdSec observes in-the-wild exploitation of CVE-2018-17431 for the first time.

## References

- https://github.com/Fadavvi/CVE-2018-17431-PoC#confirmation-than-bug-exist-2018-09-25-ticket-id-xwr-503-79437
- https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates/blob/main/http/cves/2018/CVE-2018-17431.yaml

## Live exploitation data

The [Live Exploit Tracker page](https://tracker.crowdsec.net/cves/CVE-2018-17431) follows observed exploitation activity for CVE-2018-17431. [Request an API key](https://tracker.crowdsec.net/request-api-key) for full access to its exploitation timeline, attacking IP addresses and blocklists.