Overview
The cybersecurity community has been alerted to a critical vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-49220. This vulnerability affects Trend Micro Apex Central versions below 8.0.7007, a widely used security management solution. The exploit involves an insecure deserialization operation that can lead to a pre-authentication remote code execution on affected installations. This vulnerability is particularly serious as it could potentially compromise the entire system or lead to data leakage. Given the widespread use of Trend Micro Apex Central and the critical nature of the vulnerability, it is crucial that users apply the recommended mitigation measures promptly.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-49220
Severity: Critical (9.8 CVSS Score)
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 Apex Central | Below version 8.0.7007
How the Exploit Works
CVE-2025-49220 leverages an insecure deserialization vulnerability in Trend Micro Apex Central. Deserialization is the process of converting serialized data back into its original format. If this process is not handled securely, it can be exploited by attackers to execute arbitrary code. In this case, the vulnerability could allow an attacker to perform a pre-authentication remote code execution, meaning they can execute malicious code on the affected system without needing to authenticate or interact with a user.
Conceptual Example Code
Here’s a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. This is a sample HTTP request that includes a serialized object with malicious payload:
POST /insecure-deserialization-endpoint HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/json
{ "serialized_object": "rO0ABXNyAC5qYXZhLnV0aWwuSGFzaE1hcAUH2sHDFmDRAwACRgAKbG9hZEZhY3RvckkACXRocmVzaG9sZHhwP0AAAAAAAAB3CAAAABAAAAAAeHg=" }Countermeasures
The most effective way to mitigate this vulnerability is to apply the vendor-supplied patch. Trend Micro has released an update (version 8.0.7007) that addresses this issue. If applying this patch isn’t immediately possible, deploying a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can serve as temporary mitigation. These systems can be configured to detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability. However, these should only be seen as stop-gap measures until the patch can be applied.