Overview
The cybersecurity landscape has been thrown into a state of alert following the discovery of a critical vulnerability in Trend Micro Endpoint Encryption PolicyServer. This vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-49214, could be exploited post-authentication to remotely execute code on affected installations, potentially leading to a system compromise or data leakage. Given that Trend Micro is a leading cybersecurity solutions provider with a wide user base, this vulnerability carries significant weight and requires swift attention.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-49214
Severity: Critical, with a CVSS score of 8.8
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Impact: Successful exploitation could lead to remote code execution, potentially resulting in system compromise or data leakage.
Affected Products
Escape the Surveillance Era
Most apps won’t tell you the truth.
They’re part of the problem.
Phone numbers. Emails. Profiles. Logs.
It’s all fuel for surveillance.
Ameeba Chat gives you a way out.
- • No phone number
- • No email
- • No personal info
- • Anonymous aliases
- • End-to-end encrypted
Chat without a trace.
Product | Affected Versions
Trend Micro Endpoint Encryption PolicyServer | All versions prior to patch
How the Exploit Works
At the heart of the vulnerability lies an insecure deserialization operation within the Trend Micro Endpoint Encryption PolicyServer. Deserialization is the process of converting serialized data back into its original form. If the server doesn’t properly validate or sanitize the serialized data before deserializing it, an attacker can inject malicious code into the serialized object. This data is then deserialized by the server, executing the malicious code within the context of the server’s environment.
This allows an attacker who has the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system to potentially execute arbitrary code remotely. This is a post-authentication vulnerability, meaning the attacker would first need to authenticate themselves with the system before they could exploit the vulnerability.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited using a malicious payload:
POST /deserialization-endpoint HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/serialized-object
{ "serialized_object": "rO0ABXNyADdpb25pY2ZyYW1ld29yay5jb3JlLmlvLkV2aWw=" }In this hypothetical example, the serialized_object contains a Base64-encoded serialized object. This object, when deserialized, could lead to the execution of arbitrary code.
Please note that the above is a conceptual example and not a real exploit code. The actual exploit would depend on many factors, including the specific configurations and versions of the Trend Micro Endpoint Encryption PolicyServer.
It is strongly recommended that all users of affected versions of Trend Micro Endpoint Encryption PolicyServer apply the vendor-supplied patch immediately or use a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) as a temporary mitigation measure.