CVE-2026-25652: Adobe ColdFusion Privilege Escalation Flaw

CVE-2026-25652 Overview

CVE-2026-25652 is an Incorrect Authorization vulnerability [CWE-863] affecting Adobe ColdFusion 2023 and 2025. A low-privileged local attacker can exploit this flaw to gain unauthorized read and write access, leading to privilege escalation on the affected system. Exploitation requires no user interaction, which lowers the barrier for an authenticated adversary to escalate access.

Adobe published the advisory APSB26-90 covering this issue. The vulnerability impacts confidentiality, integrity, and availability of ColdFusion server resources. Organizations running ColdFusion for enterprise application delivery should treat this as a priority patch item, particularly on multi-tenant or shared hosting deployments.

Critical Impact
A low-privileged local attacker can bypass authorization checks to obtain read and write access on ColdFusion 2023 and 2025 servers, resulting in full privilege escalation without user interaction.

Affected Products

Adobe ColdFusion 2023 (base release through Update 22)
Adobe ColdFusion 2025 (base release through Update 11)
Deployments using any listed update level on Windows or Linux hosts

Discovery Timeline

2026-08-11 - CVE-2026-25652 published to the National Vulnerability Database
2026-08-13 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2026-25652

Vulnerability Analysis

The flaw is an Incorrect Authorization weakness in Adobe ColdFusion. The affected code paths perform an authorization check that does not correctly enforce the privilege level required for sensitive operations. A user with only low privileges on the ColdFusion server can invoke functionality that should be restricted to administrators or higher-privileged service accounts.

Because the attack vector is local, the adversary must already have a foothold on the host or hold a valid low-privileged account. Once invoked, the vulnerable code grants read and write access to resources outside the attacker's authorization boundary. This enables modification of ColdFusion configuration, application data, or files that support further compromise.

Root Cause

The root cause is classified under CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization. The ColdFusion component evaluates the caller's identity but applies an authorization decision that does not match the intended access policy. This mismatch allows privileged actions to complete for callers that should be denied.

Attack Vector

Exploitation requires local access with low privileges and no user interaction. An attacker who has obtained a standard account, whether through prior compromise, a web-tier foothold, or malicious insider access, can trigger the vulnerable code path directly. Because the flaw yields both read and write access at an elevated privilege level, it is well suited as a second-stage primitive in a chained intrusion against ColdFusion-hosted applications.

No public proof-of-concept or exploit is currently listed for this CVE, and it does not appear on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Technical specifics beyond the Adobe advisory have not been released. See the Adobe ColdFusion Security Advisory for authoritative details.

Detection Methods for CVE-2026-25652

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected changes to ColdFusion administrator settings, scheduled tasks, or datasource configurations under cfusion/lib/ and cfusion/wwwroot/WEB-INF/.
New or modified .cfm and .cfc files owned by low-privileged accounts appearing in web root directories.
ColdFusion Administrator or CFIDE access from user contexts that historically only ran application code.

Detection Strategies

Monitor ColdFusion application logs (application.log, exception.log, server.log) for authorization-related errors, unexpected admin API calls, and access to restricted endpoints by non-admin sessions.
Baseline file integrity for ColdFusion install directories and alert on writes performed by service accounts that should have read-only access.
Correlate local account logon events with subsequent ColdFusion process activity that spawns child processes or writes to configuration paths.

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable verbose auditing on the ColdFusion Administrator interface and forward logs to a centralized SIEM for retention and correlation.
Track process lineage for coldfusion.exe, jrun.exe, and JVM processes hosting ColdFusion, alerting on unusual child processes such as cmd.exe, powershell.exe, or shell interpreters.
Alert on privilege changes for local accounts on ColdFusion hosts within short time windows following authenticated ColdFusion activity.

How to Mitigate CVE-2026-25652

Immediate Actions Required

Apply the Adobe security update referenced in APSB26-90 to all ColdFusion 2023 and 2025 servers as the primary remediation.
Inventory ColdFusion deployments and confirm the installed update level using the ColdFusion Administrator or version.properties.
Review local account membership on ColdFusion hosts and remove unnecessary interactive or service accounts.

Patch Information

Adobe has released fixed builds for ColdFusion 2023 and 2025 as documented in the Adobe ColdFusion Security Advisory APSB26-90. Administrators should install the latest cumulative update for their major version and restart the ColdFusion service to apply the fix. Verify patch application by checking the update level reported in the ColdFusion Administrator after restart.

Workarounds

Restrict local logon rights on ColdFusion servers to administrators and required service accounts only.
Enforce least privilege on the ColdFusion service account and on file system ACLs for cfusion/ directories.
Segment ColdFusion hosts from general-purpose user workstations to limit local access paths available to attackers.

bash

# Configuration example: restrict permissions on ColdFusion install directory (Linux)
chown -R coldfusion:coldfusion /opt/coldfusion2025
chmod -R 750 /opt/coldfusion2025
find /opt/coldfusion2025 -type f -name "*.cfm" -exec chmod 640 {} \;