Path Traversal in Expressvpn

CVE-2018-15490

An issue was discovered in ExpressVPN on Windows. The Xvpnd.exe process (which runs as a service with SYSTEM privileges) listens on TCP port 2015, which is used as an RPC interface for communication with the client side of the ExpressVPN application. A JSON-RPC protocol over HTTP is used for communication. The JSON-RPC XVPN.GetPreference and XVPN.SetPreference methods are vulnerable to path traversal, and allow reading and writing files on the file system on behalf of the service.

Vulnerability class: Path Traversal (Directory Traversal)

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.1 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.006 (47.2th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 47th percentile — 47.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2018-15490: held from 0.006 to 0.006.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.006 · newest: 0.006 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-15490?
CVE-2018-15490 is a high-severity vulnerability in Expressvpn, classified under Path Traversal. CVSS score: 7.1/10. Published 2019-01-02.
How severe is CVE-2018-15490?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.1 out of 10.
Is CVE-2018-15490 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.