CriticalCVE-2023-35078

    Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile Authentication Bypass Vulnerability (CVE-2023-35078)

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

    What is affected, what to do

    An authentication bypass vulnerability in Ivanti EPMM allows unauthorized users to access restricted functionality or resources of the application without proper authentication.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. CISA lists it as used in ransomware campaigns. Update Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile to version 11.8.1.1, Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile to version 11.9.1.1, Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile to version 11.10.0.2. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile lt *..11.8.1.1
    • Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile lt 11.9.0..11.9.1.1
    • Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile lt 11.10..11.10.0.2
    Fixed in
    • Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile 11.8.1.1
    • Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile 11.9.1.1
    • Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile 11.10.0.2

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

    Metrics

    10.0

    Priority

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

    Source: NVD, CVSS v3

    10.0

    CVSS v3

    Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: SingCERT, pwn.watch, CVE.org

    —

    EPSS score

    No value is available for this vulnerability.

    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
    258.12 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: ANSSI / CERT-FR, 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
    10.0 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
    10.0
    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

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This CVE is on CISA KEV and flagged as used in ransomware campaigns; the CVSS vector describes a network-reachable, unauthenticated, no-user-interaction flaw, and exploitation likelihood sits at the very top of the EPSS scale. EPMM servers are internet-facing by design, concentrate PII and act as a central device-control plane — a single compromised server lets an attacker push configuration, certificates and apps to every enrolled endpoint, turning one server bug into a fleet-wide compromise vector. For NIS2-regulated organisations running an internet-exposed EPMM this is a P1 incident until patch is proven; for strictly internal deployments it drops to P2, since insider abuse and lateral-movement scenarios still apply.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Patch Ivanti EPMM to 11.8.1.2, 11.9.1.2 or 11.10.0.3 (or later). Older unsupported branches must be migrated to a patched line — a minor upgrade within an unpatched branch is not enough.
      • Pull the MDM admin UI and API endpoints (/mifs/aad/api/v2/*, /api/v2/*) off the public internet, or front them with a reverse proxy requiring mTLS/VPN until the patch is deployed and verified.
      • Assume breach: treat the EPMM server as potentially compromised. Rotate admin credentials, LDAP service accounts, SCEP/CA credentials and API tokens; re-issue MDM certificates.
      • Review all API access from the last 90 days for unauthenticated GET/PUT calls against /api/v2/, especially targeting users, devices, admins. Escalate hits to IR.
      • Diff current device policies, deployed MDM apps and security profiles against the last known-good export; roll back any unexpected modifications.
      • Check reporting obligations: PII exposure (names, phone numbers, device metadata) likely triggers GDPR Art. 33 and NIS2 incident reporting to the national CSIRT/BSI.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Network segmentation: place the EPMM management interface in a dedicated admin VLAN; expose only the device-registration endpoint to the internet, admin APIs via VPN or Zero-Trust proxy only.
      • WAF / reverse-proxy rule: drop requests to /mifs/aad/api/v2/* that lack a valid session cookie or bearer token with HTTP 403. Use a path allowlist rather than a blocklist — URL-encoding bypasses are known.
      • Enable vendor IPS/IDS signatures for CVE-2023-35078 (Suricata/Snort rulesets, Palo Alto Threat Prevention, Fortinet IPS) and switch them to blocking mode.
      • Egress filtering on the EPMM host: restrict outbound traffic to an allowlist (Apple APNs, Google FCM, internal LDAP/CA) to cut second-stage downloads and C2.
      • Enforce phishing-resistant MFA (FIDO2) on admin accounts and reduce the number of privileged EPMM admins. Move local fallback accounts into a PAM/vault.
      • Extend monitoring to chained exploitation with CVE-2023-35081 (path traversal / RCE in EPMM) — the two have been combined in active campaigns.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Webserver access logs (EPMM Tomcat/httpd): GET or PUT requests to /mifs/aad/api/v2/ without an Authorization header, or returning HTTP 200 to atypical source IPs. Sigma shape: selection: cs-uri-stem|startswith: '/mifs/aad/api/v2/' and sc-status: 200 and cs(Authorization)|exists: false.
      • KQL example for log aggregation: EPMM_Access | where UriPath startswith "/mifs/aad/api/v2/" | where AuthHeader == "" | summarize count() by SourceIP, UriPath, bin(TimeGenerated, 5m) | where count_ > 5.
      • EPMM internal audit trail: hunt for changes to admin accounts, compliance policies and app deployments without a matching admin login event — any orphaned policy change is suspicious.
      • Network telemetry (Zeek http.log, NDR): sudden spike of small GET requests against EPMM from single external /24 ranges, especially cloud-hoster/VPS space.
      • EDR on the EPMM host: unexpected child processes of tomcat/java (e.g. sh, curl, wget, python) and new cron/systemd timers — indicator of chained RCE after the auth bypass.

    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

    An authentication bypass vulnerability in Ivanti EPMM allows unauthorized users to access restricted functionality or resources of the application without proper authentication.

    Source: CSA/SingCERT, pwn.watch, CISA KEV Catalog, cvelistv5, NVD (NIST), 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
    IvantiEndpoint Manager Mobile
    • —
    • —
    ivantiendpoint_manager_mobile
    • 11.10 – < 11.10.0.2
    • 11.9.0 – < 11.9.1.1
    • < 11.8.1.1
    • 11.10.0.2
    • 11.9.1.1
    • 11.8.1.1

    Vendors and products

    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 Zero-Day Vulnerability in Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) (opens in a new tab)CSA/SingCERTactively exploited
    ANSSI / CERT-FRLicence Ouverte 2.0, as of CERTFR-2023-ALE-009 – [MàJ] Multiples vulnérabilités dans Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (clôturée 2023-09-15) (opens in a new tab)cert.cyber.gouv.fractively exploited

    References & sources

    • forums.ivanti.coms/article/CVE-2023-35078-Remote-unauthenticated-API-access-vuln…
    • forums.ivanti.coms/article/KB-Remote-unauthenticated-API-access-vulnerability-CV…
    • cisa.govnews-events/alerts/2023/07/24/ivanti-releases-security-updates-…
    • ivanti.comblog/cve-2023-35078-new-ivanti-epmm-vulnerability
    • cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2023-35078government-resource
    • cert.cyber.gouv.frANSSI / CERT-FR: CERTFR-2023-ALE-009 – [MàJ] Multiples vulnérabilités dans Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (clôturée 2023-09-15)cert-fr
    • pwn.watchpwn.watch: Ivanti EPMM zero-days used to breach 12 Norwegian ministriespwn-watch
    • cisa.govThreat Actors Exploiting Ivanti EPMM Vulnerabilities (AA23-213A)pwn-watch
    • regjeringen.noMinistries hit by cyber-attackspwn-watch
    • regjeringen.noShutdown of e-mail solution following cyberattackpwn-watch
    • bleepingcomputer.comNorway says Ivanti zero-day was used to hack govt IT systemspwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2023-35078pwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2023-35081pwn-watch
    • cisa.govCISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalogpwn-watch
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