Overview
The cybersecurity world continues to face relentless attacks and threats, with the recent discovery of a substantial vulnerability in the Trend Micro Endpoint Encryption PolicyServer. The vulnerability, designated as CVE-2025-49212, poses a significant threat to organizations and businesses that use the affected installations. This vulnerability is particularly severe as it could lead to pre-authentication remote code execution, potentially compromising the entire system or leading to data leakage. With a CVSS Severity Score of 9.8, this is not a threat to be taken lightly.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-49212
Severity: Critical (9.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: System compromise and potential data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Trend Micro Endpoint Encryption PolicyServer | All versions prior to most recent patch
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability occurs due to an insecure deserialization operation in the PolicyServer. Deserialization is the process of converting data from a binary format back into its original data format. When this process is not securely handled, it can provide an opportunity for an attacker to inject malicious code into the serialized data. This code can then be executed when the data is deserialized. In the case of CVE-2025-49212, an attacker with network access can send a maliciously crafted request to the PolicyServer, which is then deserialized, leading to remote code execution.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual example of how an attacker might exploit this vulnerability.
POST /PolicyServer/endpoint HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/json
{ "serialized_object": "rO0ABXNyACJhbm90aGVyLnBhdGguVG9TdHJpbmdWaWFJbnNlY3VyZURlc2VyaWFsaXphdGlvbtLlztQMAAB4cAAAAFZjb2RlR2V0QmFzZTY0QnllcGFzc3dvcmQ=" }In this fictional example, the `serialized_object` value is a Base64 encoded serialized Java object that contains malicious code. When the PolicyServer deserializes this object, the code is executed.
Mitigation Guidance
The most effective mitigation strategy for this vulnerability is to apply the patch provided by the vendor, Trend Micro. If the patch cannot be immediately applied, the use of a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can provide temporary mitigation by detecting and blocking attempts to exploit this vulnerability. However, these are not long-term solutions and the vendor patch should be applied as soon as possible to fully mitigate this critical vulnerability.