vBulletin - RCE (CVE-2020-17496)

CVE-2020-17496 is a critical vulnerability in vBulletin that allows remote attackers to achieve unauthenticated command execution by abusing ajax functionality with specially crafted data.

CrowdSec has been tracking this vulnerability and its exploits since 15th of December 2023.

According to CrowdSec data, while opportunistic exploitation dominates, a portion of threat actors trying to exploit CVE-2020-17496 apply basic targeting methods such as port or service detection. This indicates emerging patterns of selective targeting. CrowdSec network telemetry also shows that exploitation of CVE-2020-17496 has significantly declined over the past week. Attack volumes are well below the long-term average, suggesting attackers are rapidly losing interest. The vulnerability appears to be falling out of active use across most threat landscapes.

Attackers typically target URLs containing /ajax/render/widget_tabbedcontainer_tab_panel in their exploitation attempts.