GitHub Repo

Detection: Adobe ColdFusion Access Control Bypass

Updated Date: 2026-03-27 ID: d6821c0b-fcdc-4c95-a77f-e10752fae41a Author: Michael Haag, Splunk Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects potential exploitation attempts against Adobe ColdFusion vulnerabilities CVE-2023-29298 and CVE-2023-26360. It monitors requests to specific ColdFusion Administrator endpoints, especially those with an unexpected additional forward slash, using the Web datamodel. This activity is significant for a SOC as it indicates attempts to bypass access controls, which can lead to unauthorized access to ColdFusion administration endpoints. If confirmed malicious, this could result in data theft, brute force attacks, or further exploitation of other vulnerabilities, posing a serious security risk to the environment.

 1
 2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly`
 3  count min(_time) as firstTime
 4        max(_time) as lastTime
 5
 6FROM datamodel=Web WHERE
 7
 8Web.url IN (
 9    "*//CFIDE/adminapi*",
10    "*//CFIDE/administrator*",
11    "*//CFIDE/componentutils*",
12    "*//CFIDE/main*",
13    "*//CFIDE/restplay*",
14    "*//CFIDE/servermanager*",
15    "*//CFIDE/wizards*",
16    "*//restplay*",
17)
18Web.status=200
19
20BY Web.http_user_agent Web.status Web.http_method
21   Web.url Web.url_length Web.src Web.dest
22
23
24| `drop_dm_object_name("Web")`
25
26| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
27
28| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
29
30| `adobe_coldfusion_access_control_bypass_filter`

Data Source

Name Platform Sourcetype Source
Suricata Other 'suricata' 'not_applicable'

Macros Used

Name Value
security_content_ctime convert timeformat="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" ctime($field$)
adobe_coldfusion_access_control_bypass_filter search *
adobe_coldfusion_access_control_bypass_filter is an empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Annotations

- MITRE ATT&CK
+ Kill Chain Phases
+ NIST
+ CIS
- Threat Actors
ID Technique Tactic
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Delivery
DE.AE
CIS 13

CVE

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Setting Value
Disabled true
Cron Schedule 0 * * * *
Earliest Time -70m@m
Latest Time -10m@m
Schedule Window auto
Creates Risk Event True
This configuration file applies to all detections of type anomaly. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting.

Implementation

This detection requires the Web datamodel to be populated from a supported Technology Add-On like Splunk for Apache, Splunk for Nginx, or Splunk for Palo Alto.

Known False Positives

This analytic is limited to HTTP Status 200. False positives may occur if the URI path is IP-restricted or externally blocked. It is recommended to review the context of the alerts and adjust the analytic parameters to better fit the specific environment.

Associated Analytic Story

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

Possible exploitation of CVE-2023-29298 against $dest$ via $url$.

Risk Object Risk Object Type Risk Score Threat Objects
dest system 20 src

References

Detection Testing

Test Type Status Dataset Source Sourcetype
Validation ✅ Passing N/A N/A N/A
Unit ✅ Passing Dataset not_applicable suricata
Integration ✅ Passing Dataset not_applicable suricata

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

Source: GitHub | Version: 8