CriticalCVE-2018-7602

    Drupal core - Highly critical - Remote Code Execution - SA-CORE-2018-004 (CVE-2018-7602)

    Published Last modified In CISA KEV since Sources: CVE.org, OSV

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    What is affected, what to do

    A remote code execution vulnerability exists within multiple subsystems of Drupal 7.x and 8.x. This potentially allows attackers to exploit multiple attack vectors on a Drupal site, which could result in the site being compromised.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. CISA lists it as used in ransomware campaigns. Update Drupal Core to version 7.59, Drupal Core to version 8.5.3, Drupal Core to version 8.4.8. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • Drupal Core lt *..7.59
    • Drupal Core lt *..8.5.3
    • Drupal Core lt *..8.4.8
    Fixed in
    • Drupal Core 7.59
    • Drupal Core 8.5.3
    • Drupal Core 8.4.8

    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: CVE.org, OSV

    99.17 %

    EPSS score

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

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.93

    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
    253.89 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 exploited
    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“.

    Read in glossary
    99.17 %
    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
    99.93
    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 · not automatable · Technical impact: total
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 13 August 2026
    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-94

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This CVE sits on KEV because it is network-reachable, unauthenticated, and has had public Metasploit and Python exploits (Drupalgeddon3) since 2018 — its exploitation likelihood ranks among the highest observed anywhere. CISA flags active ransomware use; the dominant attack patterns are cryptojackers (XMRig), webshell deployment, pivoting into internal networks, and botnet enrolment. The target profile is any internet-facing Drupal site regardless of size, with government, higher-education, and publishing deployments disproportionately affected. For NIS2-scoped operators running internet-facing Drupal 7.x or 8.x below 8.5.3, treat this as a P1 incident: patch within 24 h and run a full compromise assessment, because initial access may date back years.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Upgrade Drupal Core immediately: 7.x → 7.59, 8.5.x → 8.5.3, 8.4.x → 8.4.8 (last non-EOL branch); migrate 8.3.x and earlier to 8.5.3. Patch reference: SA-CORE-2018-004.
      • If patching is not feasible within hours, pull affected Drupal sites behind a WAF/reverse proxy or switch to maintenance mode (drush sset system.maintenance_mode 1); alternatively IP-allowlist admin and form endpoints.
      • Block any query parameter or POST field whose name starts with # (URL-encoded %23), e.g. name[%23post_render][]=... — this is the core of the Drupalgeddon3 exploit.
      • Rotate all admin and API credentials, regenerate $drupal_hash_salt in settings.php, invalidate OAuth tokens, and terminate active sessions (drush sql-query "TRUNCATE sessions;").
      • Perform forensics before patching: inspect the webroot, sites/default/files/, /tmp, and cron for unknown PHP files, webshells, or modified .htaccess — exploitation has been active since 2018, legacy compromises are likely.
      • Restrict outbound traffic from the webserver user (www-data, apache) to non-standard ports and known C2 ranges until the patched build is verified.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Network segmentation: place Drupal hosts in a dedicated DMZ with no lateral access to internal databases beyond required ports; allowlist outbound traffic from PHP processes to update and Composer repositories only.
      • WAF/IPS rule: deny or flag HTTP requests whose URL parameters or POST bodies contain #post_render, #pre_render, #access_callback, #lazy_builder, or [%23. ModSecurity sketch: SecRule ARGS_NAMES|ARGS "@rx (\%23|#)(post_render|pre_render|access_callback|lazy_builder)" "id:1002018002,phase:2,deny,log".
      • Endpoint hardening: PHP disable_functions = exec,passthru,shell_exec,system,proc_open,popen,pcntl_exec; constrain open_basedir to the Drupal webroot; forbid PHP execution inside sites/default/files/ via .htaccess (php_admin_flag engine off) or Nginx location ~ \.php$ { deny all; }.
      • IAM/least privilege: Drupal DB user without FILE, CREATE ROUTINE, or SUPER; webserver process must not own the webroot, preventing self-overwrite by the exploit.
      • Configuration: set user registration to "administrators only" — the form-rendering paths (/user/register, /user/password) are the primary exploit vectors; minimise anonymous forms.
      • Patch monitoring: automate drush pm:security or Composer audit in CI/CD so future SA-CORE advisories are patched within 24 h.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Webserver access logs (Apache/Nginx/Zeek http.log): requests containing %23 (URL-encoded #) in query string or POST body against Drupal paths such as /user/password, /user/register, /node/*/delete. Sigma shape: selection: cs-uri-query|contains: '%23post_render'.
      • EDR/Sysmon EID 1 process ancestry: php-fpm, httpd, or apache2 spawning sh, bash, curl, wget, python, perl, or nc, particularly with base64 or |sh payloads in command line.
      • Linux auditd: execve of shell interpreters under uid=www-data or uid=apache; new files appearing in sites/default/files/ with extensions .php, .phtml, .php5, .phar (inotify on webroot).
      • Suricata/Snort: Emerging Threats ships SIDs for Drupalgeddon2/3 (e.g. 2025323, 2025324) — enable on perimeter IDS and prioritise alerts on HTTP POST with form_id=user_pass plus shell metacharacters.
      • Drupal watchdog/dblog: unusual PHP errors referencing drupal_render, Form API or Twig; sudden creation of new admin accounts (user_insert event with role administrator). KQL shape: WebServerLogs | where UriQuery contains "%23" and UriPath has_any ("/user/password","/user/register","/node").

    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 remote code execution vulnerability exists within multiple subsystems of Drupal 7.x and 8.x. This potentially allows attackers to exploit multiple attack vectors on a Drupal site, which could result in the site being compromised. This vulnerability is related to Drupal core - Highly critical - Remote Code Execution - SA-CORE-2018-002. Both SA-CORE-2018-002 and this vulnerability are being exploited in the wild.

    Source: NVD (NIST), cvelistv5, OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities), CISA KEV Catalog

    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
    Drupalcore
    • < 8.5.3
    • < 7.59
    • < 8.4.8
    • 8.5.3
    • 7.59
    • 8.4.8
    drupaldrupal
    • 8.4.0 – < 8.4.8
    • 7.0 – < 7.59
    • 8.5.0 – < 8.5.3
    • 8.4.8
    • 7.59
    • 8.5.3

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Linuxdebiandebian_linux7.0
    Linuxdebiandebian_linux8.0
    Linuxdebiandebian_linux9.0

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-94Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

      Base

      The product constructs all or part of a code segment using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the syntax or behavior of the intended code segment.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-94

    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
    Exploit-DBEDB-ID 44542 (opens in a new tab)exploit-db.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—
    Exploit-DBEDB-ID 44557 (opens in a new tab)exploit-db.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—

    References & sources

    Changes to this CVE

    Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).

    1. NVD analysis modifiedNVD

    2. Record modifieddrupal.org

      Show 21 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Referenceadded
      —
      http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/103985
      Referenceadded
      —
      http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040754
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/04/msg00030.html
      Referenceadded
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      https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4180
      Referenceadded
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      https://www.drupal.org/sa-core-2018-004
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44542/
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44557/
      Referenceremoved
      http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/103985
      —
      Referenceremoved
      http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040754
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/04/msg00030.html
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4180
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://www.drupal.org/sa-core-2018-004
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44542/
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44557/
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/103985 Types: Broken Link, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040754 Types: Broken Link, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/04/msg00030.html Types: Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4180 Types: Third Party Advisory
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://www.drupal.org/sa-core-2018-004 Types: Patch, Vendor Advisory
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44542/ Types: Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44557/ Types: Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
      —

      Source identifier: mlhess@drupal.org

    3. Record modifiedCISA ADP

      CVSS V3.1: AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

      CVSS V3.1: before AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H, after —

      CISA assessment (SSVC): exploitation: active, automatable: no

      Show 7 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      CVSSadded
      —
      AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
      CVSSremoved
      AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
      —
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2018-7602
      Referenceremoved
      https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2018-7602
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2018-7602 Types: US Government Resource
      —
      SSVC assessmentremoved
      {"id":"CVE-2018-7602","role":"CISA Coordinator","options":[{"exploitation":"active"},{"automatable":"no"},{"technicalImpact":"total"}],"version":"2.0.3","timestamp":"2022-04-14T00:00:00+00:00"}
      —
      SSVC assessmentadded
      —
      {"id":"CVE-2018-7602","role":"CISA Coordinator","options":[{"exploitation":"active"},{"automatable":"no"},{"technicalImpact":"total"}],"version":"2.0.3","timestamp":"2026-08-13T03:55:34.450184Z"}

      Source identifier: 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

    4. Record modifiedCVE Program

      Show 21 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Referenceadded
      —
      http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/103985
      Referenceadded
      —
      http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040754
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/04/msg00030.html
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4180
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://www.drupal.org/sa-core-2018-004
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44542/
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44557/
      Referenceremoved
      http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/103985
      —
      Referenceremoved
      http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040754
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/04/msg00030.html
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4180
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://www.drupal.org/sa-core-2018-004
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44542/
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44557/
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/103985 Types: Broken Link, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040754 Types: Broken Link, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/04/msg00030.html Types: Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4180 Types: Third Party Advisory
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://www.drupal.org/sa-core-2018-004 Types: Patch, Vendor Advisory
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44542/ Types: Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44557/ Types: Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
      —

      Source identifier: af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108

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