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CVE-2018-11138 Quest CVE debrief

CVE-2018-11138 is a Quest KACE System Management Appliance remote command execution issue that CISA has listed in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. The KEV record flags known exploitation and indicates known ransomware campaign use, so this should be treated as an urgent remediation item rather than a routine patch. CISA’s guidance for this entry is to apply updates per the vendor’s instructions.

Vendor
Quest
Product
KACE System Management Appliance
CVSS
CRITICAL 9.8
CISA KEV
Listed
Original CVE published
2022-03-25
Original CVE updated
2022-03-25
Advisory published
2022-03-25
Advisory updated
2022-03-25

Who should care

Organizations running Quest KACE System Management Appliance, especially internet-facing or broadly accessible appliances, should prioritize this advisory. Security, infrastructure, and incident response teams should also care because CISA marked the vulnerability as known exploited and associated with ransomware campaign activity.

Technical summary

The issue is described in the available source material as a remote command execution vulnerability in Quest KACE System Management Appliance. The CISA KEV entry identifies the product as Quest KACE System Management Appliance, records the vulnerability as known exploited, and notes known ransomware campaign use. The source corpus does not provide additional technical details such as affected versions, attack prerequisites, or CVSS scoring.

Defensive priority

High. Because this vulnerability is in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog and has known ransomware campaign use, remediation should be prioritized immediately according to vendor guidance. The KEV due date in the supplied timeline is 2022-04-15.

Recommended defensive actions

  • Apply Quest updates or mitigations per vendor instructions as soon as possible.
  • Confirm whether any Quest KACE System Management Appliance instances are deployed in your environment.
  • Review exposure of the appliance, especially any external access paths, and reduce unnecessary access.
  • Check for suspicious activity on affected appliances and related administrative accounts.
  • Use the CISA KEV catalog entry and the vendor advisory/NVD record to validate remediation status.

Evidence notes

All statements are based on the supplied CISA KEV source item and the official resource links provided in the corpus. The KEV metadata explicitly lists vendorProject Quest, product KACE System Management Appliance, vulnerabilityName Remote Command Execution Vulnerability, dateAdded 2022-03-25, dueDate 2022-04-15, and knownRansomwareCampaignUse Known. No additional technical details were inferred beyond the source corpus and official link annotations.

Sources and references

Verified primary and authoritative sources

  • CVE-2018-11138 CVE Program record

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-11138

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

  • CVE-2018-11138 NVD vulnerability detail

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-11138

    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.