CriticalCVE-2022-47986

    IBM Aspera Faspex code execution (CVE-2022-47986)

    Published In CISA KEV since Sources: SingCERT, pwn.watch, CVE.org

    What is affected, what to do

    The vulnerability CVE-2022-47986 allows for remote code execution (RCE) due to a YAML deserialization flaw in IBM Aspera Faspex versions 4.4.2 Patch Level 1 and earlier. An attacker can execute arbitrary code on the system by sending a specially crafted obsolete API call. This vulnerability is actively exploited in ransomware campaigns since 2023. Affected versions are up to 4.4.1; a patch is available in Faspex 4.4.2 PL2. An immediate update to the patched version is imperative.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. CISA lists it as used in ransomware campaigns. The available sources name no fixed version. Check the vendor guidance in the references below. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • IBM Aspera Faspex eq 4.4.2 Patch Level 1 and earlier..4.4.2 Patch Level 1 and earlier

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    9.8

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: NVD, CVSS v3

    9.8

    CVSS v3

    Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: SingCERT, pwn.watch, CVE.org

    99.97 %

    EPSS score

    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.98

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Critical
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    256.17 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    actively exploitedSource: CSA/SingCERT How we classify
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    9.8 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    9.8
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

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    99.97 %
    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    99.98
    Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited
    Published
    In CISA KEV since

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: active · automatable · Technical impact: total
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 29 January 2025
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-502

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This is one of the most aggressively exploited entries on KEV: unauthenticated, network-reachable, trivial payload crafting, and exploitation likelihood sits at the very top of the EPSS scale. Faspex is almost always deployed at the perimeter to shuttle large files between organisations — exactly the target profile ransomware operators (Buhti, IceFire and others) have been systematically mining since early 2023. Any internet-facing Faspex instance below PL2 should be treated as presumed compromised; priority is P1/Critical regardless of compensating controls. NIS2-regulated organisations should also keep the 24-hour early-warning reporting obligation in mind if compromise is confirmed.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Upgrade IBM Aspera Faspex to 4.4.2 Patch Level 2 (PL2) or later — PL2 removes the vulnerable obsolete API endpoint and is the only complete fix. Any 4.4.x build at or below PL1 is exploitable.
      • Pull any internet-exposed Faspex instance behind a reverse proxy/WAF, or take it offline, until PL2 is verified in place. The flaw is unauthenticated, pre-auth RCE and is actively weaponised in ransomware campaigns against managed file-transfer platforms.
      • Hunt before you patch: run the detection queries below. If IoCs hit, isolate the host and preserve a forensic image rather than overwriting an active intrusion with a patch — operators are known to drop web shells and SSH keys for persistence.
      • Rotate every secret the Faspex host can see: local Faspex admin, SMTP relay credentials, DB account, API tokens, keys for connected AoC/Shares backends. Treat all stored secrets as compromised once RCE is on the table.
      • Lock down egress from the Faspex server to a strict allow-list (SMTP relay, internal storage backends) to blunt C2 and data exfiltration while patching rolls out.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Network segmentation: Faspex belongs in a dedicated DMZ VLAN with tight ingress ACLs. The admin interface (typically TCP/443 under /aspera/faspex/admin) must only be reachable from hardened admin jump hosts.
      • WAF/reverse-proxy rule: block POST requests to the vulnerable path /aspera/faspex/package_relay/relay_package, or restrict them to known peering partners. Drop application/json bodies containing YAML tags such as !ruby/object, --- !ruby/hash, or !!python/object.
      • IPS (Snort/Suricata): enable rules for YAML deserialisation payloads targeting Ruby on Rails apps, especially patterns referencing !ruby/object:Gem::Installer or !ruby/object:Gem::Requirement.
      • Host hardening: run the Faspex process as a dedicated low-privilege user, mount /tmp and /var/tmp as nosuid/noexec, and enforce a SELinux/AppArmor profile that forbids shell spawning from the Ruby interpreter.
      • IAM/least privilege: strip the Faspex DB user to the minimum (no SUPER, no FILE). Externalise backend credentials to a secrets vault rather than cleartext Faspex config.
      • Post-patch verification: after PL2 install, rescan with a vulnerability scanner plugin for CVE-2022-47986 and confirm the obsolete endpoint actually returns 404.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Web access logs: POST to /aspera/faspex/package_relay/relay_package or any package_relay path with oversized bodies or YAML markers. Sigma shape: selection: cs-method: POST, cs-uri-stem|contains: 'package_relay' combined with cs-content-type|contains: 'json'.
      • Process ancestry (Sysmon EID 1 / auditd execve): Ruby or Faspex service process spawning sh, bash, curl, wget, python, or nc. KQL shape: DeviceProcessEvents | where InitiatingProcessFileName in~ ('ruby','faspex') and FileName in~ ('sh','bash','curl','wget','nc','python3').
      • Filesystem: new executable files or shell scripts appearing in /tmp, /var/tmp, or the Faspex log/ and tmp/ directories within a 5-second window of a POST request to the Faspex web port.
      • Network telemetry: outbound connections from the Faspex host to non-allow-listed IPs, especially on TCP/443, TCP/80, TCP/4444, TCP/8080. Subscribe to the IoCs published for the Feb 2023 Buhti and IceFire ransomware campaigns (CISA, Rapid7, SentinelOne writeups) in your TI feed.
      • Faspex application logs: any references to the obsolete API endpoint after PL2 is supposedly installed — a strong signal that the patch rollout failed or was rolled back.

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited: treat the vulnerability as a priority in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2. If it is exploited in your environment, check the reporting obligation under Art. 23 (early warning within 24 hours).
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    Since 11.09.2026, manufacturers of affected products with digital elements must report actively exploited vulnerabilities under Art. 14 CRA, with an early warning within 24 hours via ENISA's single reporting platform.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    IBM Aspera Faspex 4.4.2 Patch Level 1 and earlier could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system, caused by a YAML deserialization flaw. By sending a specially crafted obsolete API call, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code on the system. The obsolete API call was removed in Faspex 4.4.2 PL2. IBM X-Force ID: 243512.

    Source: CSA/SingCERT, pwn.watch, NVD (NIST), cvelistv5, CISA KEV Catalog, CVE.org (MITRE)

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    IBMAspera Faspex
    • 4.4.2 Patch Level 1 and earlier
    • —
    ibmaspera_faspex
    • 4.4.2
    • ≤ 4.4.1
    • —
    • —

    Vendors and products

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-502Deserialization of Untrusted Data

      Base

      The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently ensuring that the resulting data will be valid.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-502

    Public exploit references

    Publicly reported proof-of-concepts, exploit modules and detection templates for this vulnerability. NEOSEC links to the original sources only and does not provide any exploit code.

    Public exploit references
    CISA KEV CatalogCISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.govactively exploited
    CSA/SingCERTActive Exploitation of Critical Vulnerability in IBM Aspera Faspex (opens in a new tab)CSA/SingCERTactively exploited
    Packet StormIBM Aspera Faspex 4.4.1 YAML Deserialization (opens in a new tab)packetstormsecurity.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—

    References & sources

    • ibm.comsupport/pages/node/6952319Vendor advisory, Patch, Vendor advisory
    • exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.comvulnerabilities/243512Vulnerability database, Vulnerability database, Vendor advisory
    • packetstormsecurity.comfiles/171772/IBM-Aspera-Faspex-4.4.1-YAML-Deserialization.htmlThird-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2022-47986government-resource, US government resource
    • pwn.watchpwn.watch: IBM Aspera Faspex: Code Execution (CVE-2022-47986)pwn-watch
    • exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.comVendor advisory: IBM Aspera Faspexpwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2022-47986pwn-watch
    • cisa.govCISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalogpwn-watch
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