CVE-2023-40044

Exploitation

Exploited in the wild. Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-10-05. Federal remediation due 2023-10-26. Known ransomware campaign use: reported by CISA.

SSVC decision

• ExploitationactiveCISA reports credible evidence of active exploitation.
• AutomatableyesAn attacker can reliably automate reconnaissance through exploitation, so this scales.
• Technical ImpacttotalSuccessful exploitation gives total control of the vulnerable component.

CISA publishes the decision points, not a final SSVC decision. The decision also depends on mission and well-being impact, which is a property of your deployment rather than of the vulnerability.

EPSS probability

90.35% probability of exploitation activity in the next 30 days.

EPSS percentile

Equal to or higher than the score of 99.7% of scored records. A rank, not a probability.

NVD base score

8.8 (CVSS v3.x), scored by the NVD independently of the CNA.

NVD CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD analysis status

Analyzed. NVD last modified this record on 2026-06-17.

Red Hat severity

No Red Hat rating. Red Hat rates the CVEs that affect its products.

Exploit-prediction scores from FIRST. Independent scoring and analysis status from the NVD. Vendor severity from Red Hat. Exploitation assessment and catalog membership from CISA.

Published

2023-09-27 14:48Z3 YR AGO

Last updated

2025-10-21 23:05Z1 YR AGO

Reserved

2023-08-08

Assigning CNA

ProgressSoftware

Record state

PUBLISHED

Severity

Critical (CVSS 10.0)

CNA CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Weaknesses

• CWE-502Deserialization of Untrusted DataBase

Data version

5.1

Document digest

9b1435e4ab3be12083be03df966de5dbbd016198b8fdc6c2d9d0c0d531937404

• www.progress.comhttps://www.progress.com/ws_ftpproduct
• community.progress.comhttps://community.progress.com/s/article/WS-FTP-Server-Critical-Vulnerability-September-2023vendor-advisory
• www.theregister.comhttps://www.theregister.com/2023/10/02/ws_ftp_update/
• www.rapid7.comhttps://www.rapid7.com/blog/post/2023/09/29/etr-critical-vulnerabilities-in-ws_ftp-server/
• attackerkb.comhttps://attackerkb.com/topics/bn32f9sNax/cve-2023-40044
• censys.comhttps://censys.com/cve-2023-40044/
• www.assetnote.iohttps://www.assetnote.io/resources/research/rce-in-progress-ws-ftp-ad-hoc-via-iis-http-modules-cve-2023-40044
• packetstormsecurity.comhttp://packetstormsecurity.com/files/174917/Progress-Software-WS_FTP-Unauthenticated-Remote-Code-Execution.html
• www.cisa.govhttps://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2023-40044government-resource