CriticalCVE-2024-21887

    Ivanti Connect Secure and Policy Secure Command Injection Vulnerability (CVE-2024-21887)

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

    What is affected, what to do

    A command injection vulnerability in web components of Ivanti Connect Secure (9.x, 22.x) and Ivanti Policy Secure (9.x, 22.x) allows an authenticated administrator to send specially crafted requests and execute arbitrary commands on the appliance.

    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
    • Ivanti ICS lte 9.1R18..9.1R18
    • Ivanti ICS lte 22.6R2..22.6R2
    • Ivanti IPS lte 9.1R18..9.1R18
    • Ivanti IPS lte 22.6R1..22.6R1

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

    Metrics

    9.1

    Priority

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

    Source: NVD, CVSS v3

    9.1

    CVSS v3

    Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: CVE.org, SingCERT, NCSC NZ, pwn.watch

    —

    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
    254.75 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: CERT.at, ANSSI / CERT-FR, NCSC NZ, 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
    9.1 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
    9.1
    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 the reason Ivanti perimeter appliances became one of the most abused edge-device classes in Europe during 2024: network-reachable, trivially chained with an auth-bypass to turn it into unauthenticated RCE on a device that sits in front of AD and brokers every VPN session. The CISA KEV ransomware-use flag is set, the exploitation likelihood is in the very top band, and both mass scanning and opportunistic exploitation by multiple intrusion sets are well documented. For NIS2-scoped organisations, any externally reachable ICS/IPS appliance is a crown jewel: 24-hour patch SLA, and even a weak IoC should trigger a breach workflow including the regulatory notification assessment under § 32 NIS2UmsuCG / Article 23 of the NIS2 Directive.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Patch Ivanti Connect Secure (9.x, 22.x) and Policy Secure (9.x, 22.x) to the vendor-fixed builds (rollout available since January/February 2024; look up the exact build per branch in the Ivanti advisory for CVE-2023-46805 / CVE-2024-21887). Because this flaw is actively chained with the auth-bypass CVE-2023-46805, the real-world impact is unauthenticated RCE.
      • If patching is not immediately possible, import the Ivanti-supplied XML mitigation (mitigation.release.20240107.1.xml or current successor) through the admin UI. It disables the vulnerable web endpoints until the patch is applied.
      • Restrict external reachability of the admin interface (443/TCP) via perimeter ACL to defined admin jump hosts; keep end-user VPN termination untouched but separate the admin path.
      • Run the Integrity Checker Tool (ICT) — both internal and external — against every appliance and preserve the output. Ivanti has repeatedly noted that attackers restore files to a clean state before ICT runs; a clean ICT is an indicator, not an absolution.
      • On any ICT mismatch, suspicious process or unexpected config change, treat the appliance as compromised: factory reset, re-deploy from a known-clean build, then patch.
      • Rotate every secret stored on the appliance: local admin credentials, API keys, RADIUS/LDAP bind accounts, session cookies, VPN pre-shared keys, certificates (including private keys) and cached AD credentials.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Network segmentation: place the appliance in a dedicated DMZ zone; whitelist egress (SSRF/C2 vector) via firewall to only AD DCs, RADIUS, DNS, NTP and Ivanti update hosts. Deny lateral SMB/WinRM/RDP out of the DMZ.
      • WAF or reverse proxy in front of the appliance: block or alert on paths /api/v1/license/keys-status/* and /api/v1/totp/user-backup-code/*, and generally on ../ plus shell metacharacters (;, |, `, $()) in URI components of these endpoints.
      • IAM hardening: bind the admin interface to a separate management VLAN, enforce MFA for every admin account, audit local fallback accounts and rotate their passwords. No admin access from user networks.
      • IDS/IPS: enable the Emerging Threats Suricata/Snort signatures for CVE-2023-46805 / CVE-2024-21887 (ET-Open SID range from January 2024); add a generic rule on POST requests to the above API paths carrying non-ASCII or shell characters in the body.
      • Endpoint hardening: on downstream systems (DCs, file servers) reachable from the appliance, enforce Credential Guard and restrictive logon rights for service accounts used by the VPN pool, to slow lateral movement after an appliance breach.
      • Configuration baseline: inspect /data/runtime/mtmp/lmdb and /home/runtime/cockpit/* for unknown Perl/Python artefacts; run YARA signatures for the known web shells (GLASSTOKEN, GIFTEDVISITOR, BUSHWALK) on network mirror captures.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Zeek/Suricata: HTTP POST on URI matching ^/api/v1/(license/keys-status|totp/user-backup-code)/ with status 200 and an unusually short User-Agent or missing Referer — high-priority alert.
      • Web access log pattern (Splunk/Elastic KQL-style): url.path:"/api/v1/license/keys-status/" AND http.request.method:"GET" AND (url.path:*";"* OR url.path:*"|"*) — classic command injection payload.
      • Outbound telemetry: appliance IP initiating DNS TXT queries, 443/TCP to non-Ivanti hosts, or traffic to known C2/tunnelling services (Interactsh, ngrok, Cloudflare Tunnel). Sigma shape: source.ip in appliance_pool AND destination.domain not in allowlist.
      • Any ICT mismatch, out-of-window appliance reboot without a change ticket, or unexpected files under /tmp/ in the appliance support bundle — each raised as its own SIEM signal per appliance.
      • On downstream AD DCs: Event ID 4624 Logon Type 3 from the appliance IP using accounts that are not VPN service accounts; Event ID 4769 (Kerberos TGS) with unusual SPNs shortly after a spike of appliance requests.

    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

    A command injection vulnerability in web components of Ivanti Connect Secure (9.x, 22.x) and Ivanti Policy Secure (9.x, 22.x) allows an authenticated administrator to send specially crafted requests and execute arbitrary commands on the appliance.

    Source: CISA KEV Catalog, NVD (NIST), CVE.org (MITRE), CSA/SingCERT, cvelistv5, NCSC NZ (CC BY 4.0), pwn.watch

    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
    IvantiICS
    • ≤ 9.1R18
    • ≤ 22.6R2
    • —
    • —
    IvantiIPS
    • ≤ 22.6R1
    • ≤ 9.1R18
    • —
    • —
    ivanticonnect_secure
    • 22.2
    • 9.1
    • 22.1
    • 22.6
    • 22.3
    • 22.4
    • 9.0
    • 22.5
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    ivantipolicy_secure
    • 9.1
    • 22.4
    • 22.1
    • 22.2
    • 9.0
    • 22.6
    • 22.3
    • 22.5
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —

    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 Vulnerabilities in Ivanti Connect Secure and Ivanti Policy Secure Gateways (opens in a new tab)CSA/SingCERTactively exploited
    NCSC NZVulnerabilities in Ivanti gateways actively exploited (opens in a new tab)NCSC NZactively exploited
    NCSC NZCISA, U.S. and International Partners Warn of Ongoing Exploitation of Multiple Ivanti Vulnerabilities (opens in a new tab)NCSC NZactively exploited
    NCSC NZMultiple vulnerabilities within Ivanti Connect Secure and Ivanti Policy Secure gateways (opens in a new tab)NCSC NZactively exploited
    ANSSI / CERT-FRLicence Ouverte 2.0, as of CERTFR-2024-ALE-001 – [MàJ] Multiples vulnérabilités dans Ivanti Connect Secure et Policy Secure Gateways (clôturée 2024-04-15) (opens in a new tab)cert.cyber.gouv.fractively exploited
    Packet StormIvanti Connect Secure Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution (opens in a new tab)packetstormsecurity.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—

    References & sources

    • forums.ivanti.coms/article/CVE-2023-46805-Authentication-Bypass-CVE-2024-21887-C…
    • packetstormsecurity.comfiles/176668/Ivanti-Connect-Secure-Unauthenticated-Remote-Code-…
    • cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2024-21887government-resource
    • cert.atCERT.at: Update #6: Kritische Sicherheitslücken in Ivanti Connect Secure und Ivanti Policy Secure - aktiv ausgenützt - Patches verfügbarcert-at
    • cert.cyber.gouv.frANSSI / CERT-FR: CERTFR-2024-ALE-001 – [MàJ] Multiples vulnérabilités dans Ivanti Connect Secure et Policy Secure Gateways (clôturée 2024-04-15)cert-fr
    • pwn.watchpwn.watch: Ivanti Connect Secure zero-days chained for mass VPN compromisepwn-watch
    • volexity.comActive exploitation of two zero-day vulnerabilities in Ivanti Connect Secure VPNpwn-watch
    • forums.ivanti.comIvanti KB: CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887 for Ivanti Connect Secure and Policy Securepwn-watch
    • cisa.govED 24-01: Mitigate Ivanti Connect Secure and Ivanti Policy Secure vulnerabilitiespwn-watch
    • cisa.govSupplemental Direction V1: ED 24-01pwn-watch
    • cloud.google.comSuspected APT targets Ivanti Connect Secure VPN in new zero-day exploitationpwn-watch
    • forums.ivanti.comIvanti advisory: CVE-2023-46805pwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2023-46805pwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2024-21887pwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2024-21893pwn-watch
    • cisa.govCISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalogpwn-watch
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