CVE-2023-22515 Detection: A Critical Zero-Day in Confluence Data Center & Server Under Active Exploitation

Atlassian has recently notified defenders of a critical privilege escalation vulnerability in its Confluence software. The uncovered issue identified as CVE-2023-22515 poses severe risks to impacted Confluence installations as it is actively weaponized by attackers.

Detect CVE-2023-22515 Exploits

With the ever-increasing numbers of CVEs leveraged in real-world attacks, proactive detection of vulnerability exploitation remains one of the top content demands. Due to the growing risks of CVE-2023-22515 attacks, organizations require relevant detection content to identify malicious activity on time and prevent possible security breaches. 

SOC Prime Platform offers a curated Sigma rule compatible with 28 SIEM, EDR, XDR, and Data Lake solutions to identify exploitation attempts related to CVE-2023-22515. The detection is mapped to MITRE ATT&CK® framework v12 addressing Initial Access tactics with the Exploiting Public-Facing Applications (T1190) as a corresponding technique.

Possible CVE-2023-22515 (Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Confluence Data Center and Server) Exploitation Attempt (via keywords)

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CVE-2023-22515 Description

Atlassian recently issued a security notice covering a new zero-day flaw in its Confluence Data Center and Server. The discovered security bug designated as CVE-2023-22515 with the extremely high CVSS score reaching 10 affects Confluence software versions 8.0.0 and later. Remote attackers can easily take advantage of the flaw, with no user interaction required, which escalates the risks. 

While it’s not common, there were instances before where privilege escalation vulnerabilities ranked so high at a CVSS score. Atlassian suggests that CVE-2023-22515 could potentially be exploited remotely, a characteristic usually associated with an authentication bypass or RCE chain rather than a standalone privilege escalation flaw, according to the Rapid7 inquiry. The latter assumes that CVE-2023-22515 might allow elevating account privileges to admin, giving adversaries the green light to spread the infection further. 

To remediate the threat, it is recommended that potentially compromised users upgrade their on-premises instances to the patched software versions. As an alternative CVE-2023-22515 mitigation step for those Confluence instances that cannot be immediately patched, cyber defenders recommend limiting external network access and implementing access restrictions for the /setup/* endpoints within the software. 

Defenders also assume that the vulnerability patch release can encourage adversaries to look for potential blind spots and streamline the generation of usable CVE-2023-22515 exploit code, which requires strengthening threat detection and hunting capabilities to proactively defend against related adversary campaigns. Rely on SOC Prime’s Threat Detection Marketplace to browse for brand-new detection ideas against emerging threats, CVEs, and the latest TTPs used by adversaries in the wild, centrally manage and deploy your detection content at scale, as well as store your Detection-as-Code projects in a secure environment — have it all at hand in a single place.