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PatchSiren cyber security CVE debrief

CVE-2023-38205 Adobe CVE debrief

CVE-2023-38205 is an Adobe ColdFusion improper access control vulnerability that CISA added to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-07-20. That KEV listing means defenders should treat it as actively exploited risk and follow Adobe’s guidance immediately. CISA’s required action is to apply vendor mitigations or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Vendor
Adobe
Product
ColdFusion
CVSS
HIGH 7.5
CISA KEV
Listed
Original CVE published
2023-07-20
Original CVE updated
2023-07-20
Advisory published
2023-07-20
Advisory updated
2023-07-20

Who should care

Security teams responsible for Adobe ColdFusion, internet-facing application servers, and any environment that relies on ColdFusion for business-critical web applications. Incident responders and vulnerability management teams should also prioritize this CVE because it appears in CISA’s KEV catalog.

Technical summary

The available source corpus identifies the issue as an improper access control vulnerability in Adobe ColdFusion. The CISA KEV entry does not provide exploit mechanics, but it does mark the CVE as known to be exploited and references Adobe’s security guidance. No CVSS score or severity was supplied in the source corpus, so the primary risk signal here is the KEV designation rather than a published score.

Defensive priority

High. CISA listed the CVE in KEV on 2023-07-20 and set a remediation due date of 2023-08-10, which makes this a time-sensitive remediation item for any exposed ColdFusion deployment.

Recommended defensive actions

  • Review Adobe’s security advisory for CVE-2023-38205 and apply the vendor-recommended mitigations as soon as possible.
  • If mitigations cannot be applied, discontinue use of the affected ColdFusion product or isolate it until it can be remediated.
  • Inventory all Adobe ColdFusion instances, especially internet-facing systems, to confirm whether any are affected.
  • Prioritize patching and validation before the CISA KEV due date associated with this CVE.
  • Verify remediation by rechecking version, configuration, and exposure after applying the vendor guidance.

Evidence notes

The debrief is based on the supplied CISA KEV source item and linked official resources. The source item metadata identifies the vulnerability as "Adobe ColdFusion Improper Access Control Vulnerability," marks it as KEV, and records the CISA required action: "Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable." The timeline fields supplied for this record show dateAdded 2023-07-20 and dueDate 2023-08-10. No additional exploit details or severity values were provided in the corpus.

Sources and references

Verified primary and authoritative sources

  • CVE-2023-38205 CVE Program record

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-38205

    CVE Program - Official CVE Program record with source-provided CVE metadata.

  • CVE-2023-38205 NVD vulnerability detail

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-38205

    NIST National Vulnerability Database - Official NIST NVD detail page and source-specific vulnerability assessment.

  • CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog

    Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency - Official CISA catalog of vulnerabilities known to be exploited in the wild.

Supplemental references

  • Source item URL

    Unverified legacy reference

    URL: https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/feeds/known_exploited_vulnerabilities.json

    cisa_kev

Methodology and review provenance

AI-assisted synthesis based on stored public vulnerability evidence. System validation, approval state, and publication status do not by themselves establish human review of this revision. PatchSiren helps prioritize defensive review and does not prove exposure or remediation on any system.