Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessObtain high-privileged admin credentials
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DeliveryAuthenticate to Kiteworks admin interface
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ExploitSubmit crafted input to vulnerable admin function
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ExecutionInjected OS command executes as root
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ImpactFull appliance node compromise
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A05:2025 - Injection
ASVS 5.0
V1 - Encoding and Sanitization OS command sanitization, avoid shell exec
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 1 tactic: Execution The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires an authenticated administrative account with elevated (high) privileges on the Kiteworks Core appliance - PR:H is the dominant limiting factor and removes any possibility of unauthenticated or low-privilege abuse. The attacker sends crafted input over the network (AV:N) to an admin-only function that unsafely passes it to an OS shell; no user interaction and no non-default configuration is indicated. Because the injected command runs as root, the impact is host-level total compromise, but the realistic risk hinges entirely on whether high-privilege admin credentials can be obtained or are already held (insider or compromised-credential threat model). |
| Impact | This is a genuine RCE-class flaw but with meaningful access barriers that cap its real-world urgency at moderate. The CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H = 7.2) confirms network reachability with low attack complexity and no user interaction, and the full C:H/I:H/A:H triad is fully justified because successful exploitation yields arbitrary OS command execution as root on the appliance node - the worst-case technical impact. However, PR:H is the decisive limiter: the attacker must already hold a high-privileged administrative account, which is why the score sits at 7.2 rather than in the critical range. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no public POC were provided, so exploitation status is 'no public exploit identified at time of analysis' - there is no evidence of active or widespread exploitation. In SSVC terms, exploitation is 'none', the technical impact is 'total', but automatability is 'no' because the required prior admin authentication prevents unattended mass exploitation. Net: this is a post-authentication privilege-to-root escalation vector best treated as a defense-in-depth patch (an admin who is already malicious or whose credentials are compromised gains root), not a drop-everything internet-facing emergency. No signals are internally conflicting; the description ('high-privileged authenticated administrator') and the CVSS PR:H are consistent. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker who has obtained high-privileged Kiteworks administrator credentials - via phishing, credential reuse, or an insider - submits crafted input to an administrative function that passes it unsafely to an operating-system shell. The injected command executes as root on the appliance node, giving the attacker full control of the host beneath the application. No public exploit code is currently identified, and exploitation requires the elevated admin account to already be in the attacker's hands. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Sep 30, 2026
Command injection in Kiteworks Core lets an authenticated administrator with elevated privileges run arbitrary operating-system commands as root on the affected appliance node, so an admin-only function can be turned into full host compromise. The flaw is remotely reachable and needs no user interaction (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N, base score 7.2), but PR:H is the dominant limiting factor: no unauthenticated or low-privilege path is indicated, so practical exploitation presupposes an insider or stolen high-privilege administrative credentials. There is no public exploit identified at time of analysis and the CVE is not listed in CISA KEV, keeping real-world urgency moderate and dependent on the value of the credentials required.
RemediationAI
Patch status: patch available per vendor advisory, with the exact fixed build enumerated only in the vendor's advisory at https://github.com/kiteworks/security-advisories/security/advisories/GHSA-p5q5-49j9-hx8w (a precise version number is not provided in the available data, so administrators should apply the current Kiteworks Core release referenced there and verify against the CISA CSAF entry va-26-274-01). Until that upgrade is applied, the most effective compensating control is to restrict reachability of the appliance's administrative interface and API to a hardened management VLAN or jump host with network ACLs, accepting the trade-off that legitimate remote administration and any automation calling admin endpoints from other segments will need re-routing. Enforce phishing-resistant MFA on all administrative accounts and rotate existing admin credentials, since the flaw is only exploitable with high-privilege credentials - this reduces likelihood but does not remove the flaw, because any fully authenticated admin can still trigger it. Additionally, disable or block unused administrative functionality and endpoints where operationally possible, with the caveat that feature removal can break provisioning or integration workflows, and enable verbose audit logging of admin sessions while monitoring for shell or child processes spawned by the Kiteworks web/application service, which is detection rather than prevention and therefore only a supporting measure.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
The root cause is CWE-78 (improper neutralization of special elements used in an OS command), i.e. classic OS command injection. A network-reachable, administrative-only function of the Kiteworks Core appliance (the CPE entry cpe:2.3:a:kiteworks:core:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* identifies the affected product) passes attacker-controlled input into a shell invocation without sanitizing shell metacharacters, allowing command chaining or substitution. Because the vulnerable component executes with root privileges on the appliance node, successful injection crosses a privilege boundary from application administrator to node-level root, which is why the confidentiality, integrity and availability impacts are all assessed High while scope remains Unchanged (S:U) - the effect stays within the appliance's own security authority. The attack is delivered over the network (AV:N) with low complexity (AC:L) and no user interaction (UI:N), and the PR:H metric confirms an account with high administrative privilege is required. The vulnerability is catalogued by CISA's CSAF program (VA-26-274-01) and carries the 'Command Injection' and 'Core' tags.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Network-reachable admin function (AV:N/AC:L) requiring a high-privileged admin account (PR:H), no UI; root command execution yields full C:H/I:H/A:H with no scope change (S:U).
Primary rating from Vendor (cisa-cg).
CVSS VectorVendor: cisa-cg
Lifecycle Timeline
2DescriptionCVE.org
A command injection vulnerability in Kiteworks could allow a high-privileged authenticated administrator to execute arbitrary operating-system commands as root on the affected appliance node. Successful exploitation requires an administrative account with elevated privileges.
Technical POC Analysis
The flaw class is CWE-78 (OS Command Injection), scoped by the advisory to the Kiteworks Core component.
Full technical POC analysis - root cause, step-by-step exploitation and patch breakdown - is part of the Pro and Business plans.
Executive ViewAI
Kiteworks Core, the secure file-transfer and content-governance platform many organizations rely on to exchange sensitive data, contains a command-injection flaw that lets an administrator with elevated privileges run operating-system commands as root on the affected appliance node. Exploitation requires high-privilege administrative credentials and no public exploit code or confirmed active exploitation has been identified, so the near-term external threat is limited; the real exposure is insider misuse or theft of administrator credentials, which would hand an attacker full control of a system that typically stores and brokers regulated data. Leadership should treat this as a privileged-access governance problem as much as a patching problem, particularly because no vendor fix is currently available.
No vendor-released patch identified at time of analysis. Interim mitigations: restrict appliance administrative access to a minimal named set of staff with MFA enforced; remove or disable unused and shared administrator accounts; block internet or broad-network reachability to management interfaces and confine them to a segmented administrative VLAN with least-privilege egress; enable and centrally forward command-execution, authentication, and configuration-change logging with alerting on anomalous root-level activity; apply credential rotation for administrative and service accounts; and maintain tested offline backups to support rebuilding a compromised appliance node.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
OS command injection occurs when an application passes unsanitized user input directly into system shell commands.
Unauthenticated attackers who know a target's email address can take over Kiteworks Core accounts that use locally store
Improper certificate-assignment controls in Kiteworks Email Protection Gateway allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker
Stored cross-site scripting in Kiteworks Core (all versions prior to 9.5.0) enables unauthenticated attackers to persist
Authentication bypass in Kiteworks Email Protection Gateway (versions before 9.5.0) lets unauthenticated remote attacker
Server-side request forgery in Kiteworks Email Protection Gateway (versions before 9.5.0) lets a remote, unauthenticated
Server-side request forgery in Kiteworks Email Protection Gateway before 9.5.0 allows a remote, unauthenticated sender t
Unauthenticated server-side request forgery in Kiteworks Email Protection Gateway before version 9.5.0 lets a remote att
Server-side request forgery in Kiteworks Email Protection Gateway before 9.5.0 allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker
Server-side request forgery in Kiteworks Email Protection Gateway (all versions before 9.5.0) lets a remote, unauthentic
Command injection in Kiteworks Core's internal cluster-management function allows an attacker who already has code execu
Sandbox escape in Kiteworks Core's document-conversion feature (CVE-2026-102125, CVSS 8.8) allows code already executing
Authenticated privilege escalation in Kiteworks PDN (the Accellion-line private data network) before version 9.1.0 lets
EUVD-2026-90305
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
GitHub
Exploit-DB