SolarWinds Serv-U 15.5.4 Multiple Vulnerabilities

high Nessus Plugin ID 299888

Synopsis

SolarWinds Serv-U is affected by a vulnerability

Description

The version of SolarWinds Serv-U installed on the remote host is prior to 15.5.4. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the solarwinds_serv-u_15_5_4 advisory.

- An Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) vulnerability exists in Serv-U, which when exploited, gives a malicious actor the ability to execute native code as a privileged account. 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. (CVE-2025-40541)

- 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. (CVE-2025-40538)

- A type confusion vulnerability exists in Serv-U which when exploited, gives a malicious actor the ability to execute arbitrary native code as privileged account. 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. (CVE-2025-40539, CVE-2025-40540)

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Upgrade to SolarWinds Serv-U version 15.5.4 or later.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 299888

File Name: solarwinds_solarwinds_serv-u_15_5_4.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: remote

Family: FTP

Published: 2/24/2026

Updated: 2/24/2026

Configuration: Enable thorough checks (optional)

Supported Sensors: Nessus

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 8.3

Temporal Score: 6.1

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:M/C:C/I:C/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2025-40541

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.2

Temporal Score: 6.3

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/a:solarwinds:serv-u, cpe:/a:solarwinds:serv-u_file_server, cpe:/a:serv-u:serv-u

Required KB Items: installed_sw/Serv-U

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 2/24/2026

Vulnerability Publication Date: 2/24/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2025-40538, CVE-2025-40539, CVE-2025-40540, CVE-2025-40541

Detections

Analytics