Adobe ColdFusion Access Control Bypass

Name:Adobe ColdFusion Access Control Bypass
id:d6821c0b-fcdc-4c95-a77f-e10752fae41a
version:8
date:2026-03-27
author:Michael Haag, Splunk
status:production
type:Anomaly
Description:The following analytic detects potential exploitation attempts against Adobe ColdFusion vulnerabilities CVE-2023-29298 and CVE-2023-26360. It monitors requests to specific ColdFusion Administrator endpoints, especially those with an unexpected additional forward slash, using the Web datamodel. This activity is significant for a SOC as it indicates attempts to bypass access controls, which can lead to unauthorized access to ColdFusion administration endpoints. If confirmed malicious, this could result in data theft, brute force attacks, or further exploitation of other vulnerabilities, posing a serious security risk to the environment.
Data_source:

• -Suricata

search:| tstats `security_content_summariesonly`
count min(_time) as firstTime
max(_time) as lastTime

FROM datamodel=Web WHERE

Web.url IN (
"*//CFIDE/adminapi*",
"*//CFIDE/administrator*",
"*//CFIDE/componentutils*",
"*//CFIDE/main*",
"*//CFIDE/restplay*",
"*//CFIDE/servermanager*",
"*//CFIDE/wizards*",
"*//restplay*",
)
Web.status=200

BY Web.http_user_agent Web.status Web.http_method
Web.url Web.url_length Web.src Web.dest

| `drop_dm_object_name("Web")`
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
| `adobe_coldfusion_access_control_bypass_filter`

how_to_implement:This detection requires the Web datamodel to be populated from a supported Technology Add-On like Splunk for Apache, Splunk for Nginx, or Splunk for Palo Alto.
known_false_positives:This analytic is limited to HTTP Status 200. False positives may occur if the URI path is IP-restricted or externally blocked. It is recommended to review the context of the alerts and adjust the analytic parameters to better fit the specific environment.
References:
  -https://www.rapid7.com/blog/post/2023/07/11/cve-2023-29298-adobe-coldfusion-access-control-bypass/
drilldown_searches:
 name:'View the detection results for - "$dest$"'
 search:'%original_detection_search% | search dest = "$dest$"'
 earliest_offset:'$info_min_time$'
 latest_offset:'$info_max_time$'
 name:'View risk events for the last 7 days for - "$dest$"'
 search:'| from datamodel Risk.All_Risk | search normalized_risk_object IN ("$dest$") starthoursago=168 | stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime values(search_name) as "Search Name" values(risk_message) as "Risk Message" values(analyticstories) as "Analytic Stories" values(annotations._all) as "Annotations" values(annotations.mitre_attack.mitre_tactic) as "ATT&CK Tactics" by normalized_risk_object | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`'
 earliest_offset:'$info_min_time$'
 latest_offset:'$info_max_time$'
tags:
  cve:
    - 'CVE-2023-29298'
  analytic_story:
    - 'Adobe ColdFusion Arbitrary Code Execution CVE-2023-29298 CVE-2023-26360'
  asset_type:Network
  atomic_guid:
  mitre_attack_id:
    - 'T1190'
  product:
    - 'Splunk Enterprise'
    - 'Splunk Enterprise Security'
    - 'Splunk Cloud'
  security_domain:network

tests:
 name:'True Positive Test'
 attack_data:
  data: https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1190/adobe/coldfusion_cve_2023_29298.log
  source: not_applicable
  sourcetype: suricata
manual_test:None