CriticalCVE-2024-4879

    Jelly Template Injection Vulnerability in ServiceNow UI Macros (CVE-2024-4879)

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

    What is affected, what to do

    ServiceNow has addressed an input validation vulnerability that was identified in Vancouver and Washington DC Now Platform releases. This vulnerability could enable an unauthenticated user to remotely execute code within the context of the Now Platform.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. 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
    • ServiceNow eq utah..utah
    • ServiceNow eq vancouver..vancouver
    • ServiceNow eq washington_dc..washington_dc

    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: pwn.watch, CVE.org

    99.98 %

    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
    234.62 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: VulnCheck KEV (opens in a new tab) 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
    CVSS v4

    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
    9.3
    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
    99.98 %
    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 July 2024
    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-1287

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    The flaw is network-reachable without authentication and yields full remote code execution in the context of the Now Platform — exactly the profile that opportunistic scanning tooling targets at scale. In European mid-market and KRITIS environments ServiceNow is typically wired into AD, HR, CMDB and ticketing workflows, so a compromised backend gives attackers an immediate pivot into identity systems and sensitive business data. Exploitation likelihood is among the highest in the KEV catalogue and working PoCs have been public since July 2024. Treat as P1 for any instance that is externally reachable or integrated with sensitive systems, P2 for isolated internal instances with compensating network controls in place.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Deploy the ServiceNow fix: Utah Patch 10 Hot Fix 3 or Patch 10a Hot Fix 2, Vancouver Patch 6 Hot Fix 2 or Patch 7 Hot Fix 3b, Washington DC Patch 1 Hot Fix 2 or Patch 2 Hot Fix 1. Hosted instances have already been patched by ServiceNow — verify status in the HI portal.
      • Inventory every instance: all self-hosted and MID-server-connected Now Platform instances including sub-prod, dev and test. Non-production instances are routinely forgotten and often more exposed than production.
      • Restrict external access to unpatched instances via reverse proxy/WAF: allow only known office IP ranges and VPN egress, take public-facing Service Portals offline until the patch is confirmed.
      • Hunt for prior exploitation: inspect sys_ui_macro, sys_ui_page and sysevent_script_action tables and audit trail back to 2024-05 for Jelly template injection artefacts. Prioritise unexpected admin account creation and bulk service-account exports.
      • Rotate credentials and secrets if exploitation indicators are present: ServiceNow admin passwords, OAuth client secrets, MID-server credentials, integration accounts to AD, SAP and downstream ITSM systems.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • WAF rule in front of the Now Platform: block HTTP requests containing Jelly expression syntax (<j:, ${jvar_, ${sys_eval, getRefRecord) in URL, query string and POST body. Also catches the related CVE-2024-5178 and CVE-2024-5217.
      • Network segmentation: isolate Now Platform backend and MID servers in a dedicated tier, allow outbound internet only to whitelisted ServiceNow endpoints (service-now.com, update repositories). Deny arbitrary egress to prevent data exfiltration.
      • Reverse-proxy hardening: cap request size and header count on /login.do, /angular.do and /*.do paths, apply User-Agent-based rate limiting against scanners (public PoCs typically use generic Python UAs).
      • IAM least privilege: trim service-account roles to the minimum required, enforce MFA and IP allowlisting on admin and security_admin accounts, disable dormant accounts.
      • Configuration hardening: enable the glide.ui.escape_text and glide.script.block.client.globals properties, minimise public catalog items and reduce public/guest role scope.
      • Take a backup snapshot before patch rollout so forensic evidence is still available if compromise is later confirmed.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Inspect reverse-proxy access logs for PoC signatures: requests with ${jvar_ or ${AA.*} in the query string, especially against /login.do, /angular.do, /stats.do. SPL example: index=waf uri_query="*jvar_*" OR uri_query="*sys_eval*".
      • Review ServiceNow transaction logs (syslog_transaction) for anomalous response sizes on unauthenticated endpoints — successful injection often leaks internal property values (instance name, DB credentials) in the HTML response.
      • Monitor sys_audit for unexpected changes to sys_user, sys_user_has_role and sys_properties without a matching change-request ID.
      • MID-server and integration logs: outbound HTTP requests to non-listed hosts, particularly pastebin-like services or cloud storage, as a data-exfiltration indicator.
      • Sigma shape: product: webserver, selection: cs-uri-query contains "jvar_" and sc-status: 200, condition: selection — use as a skeleton and adapt to local log field names.

    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

    ServiceNow has addressed an input validation vulnerability that was identified in Vancouver and Washington DC Now Platform releases. This vulnerability could enable an unauthenticated user to remotely execute code within the context of the Now Platform. ServiceNow applied an update to hosted instances, and ServiceNow released the update to our partners and self-hosted customers. Listed below are the patches and hot fixes that address the vulnerability. If you have not done so already, we recommend applying security patches relevant to your instance as soon as possible.

    Source: 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
    ServiceNowNow Platform
    • —
    • —
    servicenowservicenow
    • vancouver
    • utah
    • washington_dc
    • —
    • —
    • —

    Vendors and products

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-1287Improper Validation of Specified Type of Input

      Base

      The product receives input that is expected to be of a certain type, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input is actually of the expected type.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-1287

    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

    References & sources

    • support.servicenow.comServiceNow advisory: CVE-2024-4879Vendor advisory, pwn-watch
    • support.servicenow.comkb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB1644293x_login-required, Permissions required
    • darkreading.comcloud-security/patchnow-servicenow-critical-rce-bugs-active-exp…Press coverage, Third-party advisory
    • cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2024-4879government-resource, US government resource
    • pwn.watchpwn.watch: ServiceNow Utah, Vancouver, and Washington DC Now Platform: 2 actively exploited vulnerabilitiespwn-watch
    • support.servicenow.comServiceNow advisory: CVE-2024-5217pwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2024-4879pwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2024-5217pwn-watch
    • cisa.govCISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalogpwn-watch
    Embed badge

    Show the severity and KEV status of this vulnerability on your site – with a link back here. The image is updated hourly.

    Badge preview for CVE-2024-4879
    <a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2024-4879"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2024-4879.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2024-4879 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>