The Jakarta Multipart parser in Apache Struts 2 2.3.x before 2.3.32 and 2.5.x before 2.5.10.1 has incorrect exception handling and error-message generation during file-upload attempts, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via a crafted Content-Type, Content-Disposition, or Content-Length HTTP header, as exploited in the wild in March 2017 with a Content-Type header containing a #cmd= string.
CVE-2017-5638
“▲” beside the score: it is higher than NVD's CVSS score.
Score elevated to 10.0 because this CVE is listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03), indicating real-world exploitation has been confirmed by US federal agencies. NVD baseline CVSS 9.8 retained for reference. Confidence: HIGH.
Also known asEUVD-2018-0625 (ENISA EUVD) · GHSA-j77q-2qqg-6989 (GitHub Security Advisories)Source: ENISA EUVD
- Actively exploited in the wild (CISA-KEV) — the reason this is sooner than the SSVC decision on this page at low mission impact
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 9.8
- EG Score
- 10.0CRITICALhigh confidence
- EG Risk
- 100EG Risk 100/100
EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score. It fuses impact severity (EG Severity, the CVSS base score, never the KEV-floored or EPSS-lifted EG Score) with real-world exploitation and automatability, under weights EchelonGraph set by hand, so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner.
How it’s computed (value × EchelonGraph’s weight)Severity100% × 45%Impact severity (EG Severity): CVSS 10.0 of 10. Never the KEV-floored or EPSS-lifted EG Score.Exploitation100% × 40%Fixed at 100% for a CISA KEV listing: EchelonGraph's rule.Automatability100% × 15%CISA's SSVC Automatable value: yes (Vulnrichment).SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph): Attend at low mission impact; Act at medium or high.Exploitation active (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable yes (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE.Action: A fix is available. Apply it sooner than your standard update timelines at low mission impact and as soon as possible at medium or high. - EPSS PROB
- >99.9%
- EPSS %ILE
- 99th
- KEV
- ⚠ Exploited
What the EG score is made of (scorer v4.0: the three questions the 0–10 score mixes, published apart · methodology)
The EG score (10.0): severity, escalated by confirmed exploitation. This CVE's 10.0 is its impact severity (EG Severity), not escalated.
- EG Severity
- 10.0 CRITICALCVSS-B, impact only: no KEV listing, EPSS or EG-KEV tier raises it.GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
- EG Likelihood
- >99.9% within 30 daysSource: FIRST EPSS (model v2026.06.15, score date 2026-11-01). FIRST's exploitation probability, not an EchelonGraph model.
- Confirmed exploitation
- CISA KEV and EG-KEV Tier 1 (exploited in the wild)Reported apart from the likelihood: an observed fact, not a probability.
- EG Priority
- SSVC Act at medium mission impactAttend at low mission impact; Act at medium or high.CISA BOD 26-04: 3 days & forensic triage if the affected system is publicly exposed; 3 days & forensic triage if it is not.Each input and its source, and whom BOD 26-04 binds: the SSVC and BOD 26-04 blocks below.
SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph)Attend at low mission impact; Act at medium or high.
A fix is available. Apply it sooner than your standard update timelines at low mission impact and as soon as possible at medium or high.
Exploitation active (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable yes (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE. Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it. CISA's table makes it high when Mission Prevalence is Essential — the vulnerable component "directly provides capabilities that constitute at least one MEF for at least one entity" (MEF: mission essential function) — or when Public Well-Being Impact is Irreversible: "multiple fatalities are likely", the cyber-physical system "is likely lost or destroyed", "extreme or serious externalities" are imposed on other parties, or social systems such as elections or the financial grid "are destabilized and potentially collapse". CISA's decision table
BOD 26-04 (CISA's remediation timeline, Table 1)3 days & forensic triage if the affected system is publicly exposed; 3 days & forensic triage if it is not.
The score's inputs: In CISA KEV yes (CISA's KEV catalog) · Automatable yes (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). Whether your system is publicly exposed is yours to answer. BOD 26-04 binds US Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies; for anyone else it is CISA's published timeline, a reference rather than an obligation. The directive · how EchelonGraph applies it
CISA required action“Apply updates per vendor instructions.”
Quoted verbatim from CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. CISA directs it at US federal civilian executive branch agencies under Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 26-04, which replaced BOD 22-01 on 10 June 2026; it is not EchelonGraph's advice. CISA's notes: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-5638
Published
March 11, 2017
Last Modified
June 17, 2026
Advisory Details (8)
Auto-updated Oct 27, 2026S2-046 - Apache Struts 2 Wiki - Apache Software Foundation
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/WW/S2-046S2-045 - Apache Struts 2 Wiki - Apache Software Foundation
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/WW/S2-045Critical vulnerability under “massive” attack imperils high-impact sites [Updated] - Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/03/critical-vulnerability-under-massive-attack-imperils-high-impact-sites/Apache Struts Vulnerability Exposes Sites to Attack | eWeek
http://www.eweek.com/security/apache-struts-vulnerability-under-attack.htmlContent-Type: Malicious - New Apache Struts2 0-day Under Attack
http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2017/03/apache-0-day-exploited.htmlApache Struts 2 Vulnerability Leads to RCE | Trend Micro (US)
http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/cve-2017-5638-apache-struts-vulnerability-remote-code-execution/Patch Availability(2)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fix (by version range) / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| maven | org.apache.struts:struts2-core @ 2.3.32 (fixes >= 2.3.0, <= 2.3.31) | — | ghsa |
| maven | org.apache.struts:struts2-core @ 2.5.10.1 (fixes >= 2.5.0, <= 2.5.10) | — | ghsa |
Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.
Affected Packages
(1 across 1 ecosystem)
Maven(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| org.apache.struts:struts2-core | 2.5 ... 2.5.8 (6 versions) |
| — |
Weakness Classification(2)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 11× in last 7d / 29× in last 30d)
Each row is a time one of our pipelines fetched, updated or re-scored this CVE. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. An arrow marks a change the record states ("CVSS v3 → 9.1"); EPSS and GHSA rows show the values recorded at that time, not what changed (EPSS values are rounded; hover one for the exact figures). Most recent first.
Showing the most recent 99 of 122 refreshes on record for this CVE.
A repeat, a row identical to one the same pipeline wrote less than 10 seconds earlier, is not a separate refresh and is not counted. 1 repeat row among the latest 100 is merged into the row it repeats. The 23 oldest rows on record are not shown and were not checked, so the counts can still include repeats.
- 2026-11-01 20:23 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-11-01 20:23 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-j77q-2qqg-6989 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 10.0
- 2026-11-01 08:44 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-j77q-2qqg-6989 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 10.0
- 2026-11-01 08:44 UTCEG score recompute▲ 0.20
- 2026-10-31 20:52 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-30 21:21 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-29 21:50 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-28 22:19 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-27 22:49 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-27 16:26 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS >99.9% · 99th percentile
- 2026-10-26 23:16 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-25 19:32 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-25 00:13 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-24 00:43 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-23 01:11 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-22 01:39 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-21 02:07 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-20 02:35 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-19 03:02 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-18 03:29 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-17 03:56 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-16 04:24 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-15 04:52 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-14 16:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS >99.9% · 99th percentile
- 2026-10-14 05:19 UTCEG score recompute
Show 74 moreShow fewer
- 2026-10-12 20:27 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-11 21:59 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-11 17:51 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-11 13:41 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-28 23:46 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-27 21:51 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-25 19:35 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-25 14:55 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-24 19:31 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-22 19:36 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-21 19:09 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-18 19:20 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-18 14:15 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-16 14:10 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-14 19:24 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-11 18:49 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-10 19:28 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-09 19:08 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-08 18:54 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-04 17:38 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-02 17:33 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-31 14:19 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-27 17:22 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-26 17:41 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-24 18:52 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-21 16:49 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-20 17:06 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-19 17:33 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-18 16:58 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-17 13:56 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-11 19:32 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-07 17:09 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-05 17:25 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-04 17:02 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-03 19:22 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-30 09:56 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-29 19:27 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-27 19:24 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-27 17:17 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-26 10:49 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-23 01:29 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 21:49 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 19:40 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-21 14:37 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-17 10:46 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-16 17:04 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-15 16:49 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-15 15:04 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-14 18:05 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-13 17:07 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-10 17:52 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-07 19:01 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-07 17:16 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-01 19:16 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-29 19:12 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-25 19:15 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS >99.9% · 99th percentile
- 2026-06-23 17:44 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-18 16:13 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-16 19:33 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-15 19:33 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-15 17:45 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS >99.9% · 99th percentile
- 2026-06-12 23:09 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 94% · 99th percentile
- 2026-06-12 17:35 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-11 19:10 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-09 18:42 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-09 17:12 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-08 19:16 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-08 17:26 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-05 22:43 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-03 19:09 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-02 18:32 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-06-01 20:42 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 94% · 99th percentile
Publicly available exploits
(14 references, 10 shown)Public exploit code is referenced for this CVE (1 Metasploit module, 2 Exploit-DB entries, 10 GitHub PoCs), as is 1 Nuclei detection template. A detection template checks whether a system is affected; it is not necessarily exploit code. Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly.
- Exploit-DBEDB-41614✓ verifiedPublished Mar 15, 2017
Apache Struts 2.3.5 < 2.3.31 / 2.5 < 2.5.10 - 'Jakarta' Multipart Parser OGNL Injection (Metasploit)
Open source ↗ - Metasploitexploit/multi/http/struts2_content_type_ognl✓ verifiedPublished Mar 14, 2017
OGNL injection via Content-Type header — the exploit chain used in the Equifax breach.
Open source ↗ - Exploit-DBEDB-41570✓ verifiedPublished Mar 9, 2017
Standalone Python exploit, weaponised within 48h of patch release.
Open source ↗ - Nucleihttp/cves/2017/CVE-2017-5638.yamlPublished Aug 19, 2020
Apache Struts 2 - Remote Command Execution
Open source ↗ - GitHub PoCwin3zz/CVE-2017-5638Published May 13, 2018
Apache Struts 2.3.5 < 2.3.31 / 2.5 < 2.5.10 - Remote Code Execution - Shell Script
Open source ↗ - GitHub PoCjas502n/st2-046-pocPublished Mar 21, 2017
st2-046-poc CVE-2017-5638
Open source ↗ - GitHub PoCjrrdev/cve-2017-5638Published Mar 15, 2017
cve-2017-5638 Vulnerable site sample
Open source ↗ - GitHub PoCmazen160/struts-pwnPublished Mar 12, 2017
An exploit for Apache Struts CVE-2017-5638
Open source ↗ - GitHub PoCret2jazzy/Struts-Apache-ExploitPackPublished Mar 12, 2017
These are just some script which you can use to detect and exploit the Apache Struts Vulnerability (CVE-2017-5638)
Open source ↗ - GitHub PoCimmunio/apache-struts2-CVE-2017-5638Published Mar 10, 2017
Demo Application and Exploit
Open source ↗
Past incidents using this CVE
(1)This CVE was central to one or more publicly-documented breaches. Each card links to authoritative reporting at the time of the incident.
- Equifax breach (Apache Struts)Sep 2017147M+ affected
Apache Struts OGNL injection vulnerability — Equifax failed to patch for 2 months, leading to one of the largest PII breaches in history. 147M US consumers exposed.
Source: CSO Online
Related CVEs(same product + same CWE)
Same product
10 shownMaven:org.apache.struts:struts2-core
- CVE-2013-4316EG 10.0EPSS p95HIGH
- CVE-2012-0838EG 10.0EPSS p96HIGH
- CVE-2024-53677EG 9.8EPSS p99CRITICAL
- CVE-2023-50164EG 9.8EPSS p100CRITICAL
- CVE-2021-31805EG 9.8EPSS p100CRITICAL
- CVE-2020-17530EG 9.8 KEVEPSS p100CRITICAL
- CVE-2019-0230EG 9.8EPSS p100CRITICAL
- CVE-2011-3923EG 9.8EPSS p100CRITICAL
- CVE-2017-12611EG 9.8EPSS p100CRITICAL
- CVE-2016-4436EG 9.8EPSS p94CRITICAL
Frequently asked(6)
What is CVE-2017-5638?
When was CVE-2017-5638 made public?
Is CVE-2017-5638 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2017-5638?
Which products are affected by CVE-2017-5638?
How do I remediate CVE-2017-5638?
Dependency Blast Radius
See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2017-5638
Is Your Infrastructure Affected by CVE-2017-5638?
EchelonGraph automatically scans your cloud infrastructure and maps CVE exposure using blast radius analysis.