What is CVE-2022-39197?

CVE-2022-39197 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Helpsystems Cobalt Strike, classified under Cross-site Scripting. CVSS score: 6.1/10. Published 2022-09-22.

How severe is CVE-2022-39197?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.1 out of 10.

Is CVE-2022-39197 known to be exploited?

Yes. CVE-2022-39197 is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-03-30), indicating it is being actively exploited. 77 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed.

XSS in Helpsystems Cobalt Strike

CVE-2022-39197

An XSS (Cross Site Scripting) vulnerability was found in HelpSystems Cobalt Strike through 4.7 that allowed a remote attacker to execute HTML on the Cobalt Strike teamserver. To exploit the vulnerability, one must first inspect a Cobalt Strike payload, and then modify the username field in the payload (or create a new payload with the extracted information and then modify that username field to be malformed).

Vulnerability class: XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)

Published 2022-09-22 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.1 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.464 (98.8th percentile), scored 2026-10-19.

Moderate probability of exploitation in the next 30 days — watch for active exploitation reports. 99th percentile — 98.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.464 · newest: 0.464 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Helpsystems Cobalt Strike

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-79 — Cross-site Scripting

CISA KEV (Known Exploited Vulnerabilities)

This CVE is on the CISA KEV catalog, added on 2023-03-30. CISA KEV inclusion means CISA has confirmed in-the-wild exploitation; US federal agencies are required to remediate within a published due date.

BOD 22-01 due date: 2023-04-20.

Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

www.cobaltstrike.com/blog/tag/release/ (Release Notes, Vendor Advisory)
www.cobaltstrike.com/blog/out-of-band-update-cobalt-strike-4-7-1/ (Mitigation, Vendor Advisory)
134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 (US Government Resource)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2022-39197?: CVE-2022-39197 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Helpsystems Cobalt Strike, classified under Cross-site Scripting. CVSS score: 6.1/10. Published 2022-09-22.
How severe is CVE-2022-39197?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.1 out of 10.
Is CVE-2022-39197 known to be exploited?: Yes. CVE-2022-39197 is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-03-30), indicating it is being actively exploited. 77 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed.