Vulnerability · Published Feb 24, 2026 · Assigned by SolarWinds

CVE-2025-40538SolarWinds Serv-U Broken Access Control Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Critical 9.1

In plain English

A critical-severity privilege mismanagement in Serv-U from SolarWinds. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.5% (higher than 46% of all known vulnerabilities).

Severity (CVSS 3.1)9.1Critical

Exploit odds (30 days)0.5%top 54.4% of all CVEs

Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none

Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

A broken access control vulnerability exists in Serv-U which when exploited, gives a malicious actor the ability to create a system admin user and execute arbitrary code as a privileged account via domain admin or group admin privileges. This issue requires administrative privileges to abuse. On Windows deployments, the risk is scored as a medium because services frequently run under less-privileged service accounts by default.

Affected products (as reported)

Vendor	Product	Versions
SolarWinds	Serv-U	SolarWinds Serv-U 15.5.3 and prior versions

Weakness: CWE-269 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

In plain English

Official description

Affected products (as reported)

References