{"id":53963,"date":"2025-06-21T23:11:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T23:11:42","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-07-08T23:21:29","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T05:21:29","slug":"cve-2025-49124-untrusted-search-path-vulnerability-in-apache-tomcat-installer-for-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-49124-untrusted-search-path-vulnerability-in-apache-tomcat-installer-for-windows\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-49124: Untrusted Search Path Vulnerability in Apache Tomcat Installer for Windows<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the continuously shifting landscape of cybersecurity, vulnerabilities can emerge from even the most unsuspected areas. CVE-2025-49124 is a clear example of such a situation. This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-27818-critical-vulnerability-in-apache-kafka-enabling-java-deserialization-attacks\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60684\">vulnerability affects Apache<\/a> Tomcat, a widely used open source implementation of the Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages, Java Expression Language, and Java WebSocket technologies. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2024-52928-severe-bypass-issue-in-arc-on-windows-allows-unauthorized-permissions-grant\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"65090\">issue lies within the Apache Tomcat installer for Windows<\/a>. During the installation process, the installer uses icacls.exe without specifying a full path. This behavior leads to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-31396-untrusted-data-deserialization-vulnerability-in-themeton-flap-business-wordpress-theme\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60244\">untrusted search path vulnerability<\/a>, potentially allowing an attacker to escalate their privileges and compromise the system or leak data.<br \/>\nGiven the widespread use of Apache Tomcat and its critical role in many web applications, this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-40912-critical-vulnerability-in-cryptx-for-perl-allows-potential-system-compromise\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60825\">vulnerability could potentially<\/a> impact a wide range of users and organizations. It is, therefore, of utmost <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-4954-critical-file-upload-vulnerability-in-axle-demo-importer-wordpress-plugin\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60713\">importance to understand the implications of this vulnerability<\/a> and how to mitigate it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-49124<br \/>\nSeverity: High (8.4 CVSS Severity Score)<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Local<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: Low<br \/>\nUser Interaction: Required<br \/>\nImpact: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-5978-critical-vulnerability-in-tenda-fh1202-1-2-0-14-potentially-leading-to-system-compromise\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"61044\">Potential system<\/a> compromise or data leakage<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-1862905934\" class=\"ameeb-content-2 ameeb-entity-placement\"><div style=\"border-left: 4px solid #555; padding-left: 20px; margin: 48px 0; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.6; max-width: 700px;\">\r\n  <h2 style=\"margin-top: 0; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"display: inline-flex; align-items: center; margin-right: 8px;\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Best-App-icon-Ameeba.png\" alt=\"Ameeba Chat Icon\" style=\"width: 40px; height: 40px;\" \/>\r\n    <\/a>\r\n    A new way to communicate\r\n  <\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 12px;\">\r\n    Ameeba Chat is built on encrypted identity, not personal profiles.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 16px;\">\r\n    Message, call, share files, and coordinate with identities kept separate.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <ul style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: 0; margin-bottom: 20px;\">\r\n    <li>\u2022 Encrypted identity<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Ameeba Chat authenticates access<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Aliases and categories<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, and files<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Secure notes for sensitive information<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 24px;\">\r\n    Private communication, rethought.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 12px;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\/download\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Download Ameeba Chat<\/a>\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ffffff; color: #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Learn More<\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n<p>Apache Tomcat | 11.0.0-M1 through 11.0.7<br \/>\nApache Tomcat | 10.1.0 through 10.1.41<br \/>\nApache Tomcat | 9.0.23 through 9.0.105<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The vulnerability stems from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-33053-a-critical-vulnerability-enabling-external-control-of-file-name-or-path-in-webdav\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60824\">Apache Tomcat installer<\/a> for Windows using icacls.exe without specifying a full path. This leads to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-31052-deserialization-of-untrusted-data-vulnerability-in-the-fashion-model-agency-one-page-beauty-theme\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60250\">untrusted search path vulnerability<\/a>, where the system might execute a malicious binary placed by an attacker in the search path. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-5353-local-authenticated-attacker-exploit-in-ivanti-workspace-control\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60929\">attacker could potentially exploit<\/a> this to elevate privileges, compromising the system or leading to data leakage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-3664541681\" class=\"ameeb-content ameeb-entity-placement\"><div class=\"poptin-embedded\" data-id=\"f6b387694f681\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>While no specific exploit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-48123-critical-code-injection-vulnerability-in-holest-engineering-spreadsheet-price-changer-for-woocommerce-and-wp-e-commerce-light\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60274\">code is currently known for this vulnerability<\/a>, an attacker could potentially exploit this vulnerability using a similar approach to the following:<\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">REM Place a malicious binary named icacls.exe in a location in PATH\necho &quot;malicious code&quot; &gt; C:\\some\\path\\in\\PATH\\icacls.exe\nREM Trigger the Apache Tomcat installation process\nstart \/wait C:\\path\\to\\apache-tomcat-installer.exe<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>In this scenario, when the Apache Tomcat installer attempts to execute icacls.exe, it could inadvertently execute the malicious binary placed by the attacker, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-5901-buffer-overflow-vulnerability-in-totolink-t10-leading-to-potential-system-compromise\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"60534\">leading to potential system<\/a> compromise or data leakage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview In the continuously shifting landscape of cybersecurity, vulnerabilities can emerge from even the most unsuspected areas. CVE-2025-49124 is a clear example of such a situation. This vulnerability affects Apache Tomcat, a widely used open source implementation of the Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages, Java Expression Language, and Java WebSocket technologies. The issue lies within the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"vendor":[103,82],"product":[108],"attack_vector":[],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-53963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","vendor-apache","vendor-microsoft","product-apache-tomcat"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53963"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58543,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53963\/revisions\/58543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53963"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=53963"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=53963"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=53963"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=53963"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=53963"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=53963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}