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Actively exploited in the wild. This CVE is on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list — treat remediation as urgent. Federal remediation due by 10 Jul 2022.
PrimefacesApplication · Primetek

CVE-2017-1000486

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2018-01-03
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 5.2.21 / 5.3.8 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
In the wild High EPSS Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Primetek Primefaces 5.x is vulnerable to a weak encryption flaw resulting in remote code execution

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

PrimeFaces 5.x contains a weak encryption flaw in its state/view handling mechanism that allows attackers to decrypt and manipulate the encrypted ViewState, leading to remote code execution through the injection of malicious serialized Java objects.

MitigationUpgrade PrimeFaces to the latest version (5.3+ or preferably latest stable) which addresses the weak encryption, and rotate any exposed keys or credentials.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
PrimefacesApplication
Affected:>= 4.0, <= 4.0.24>= 5.0, < 5.2.21>= 5.3, < 5.3.8

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Locate the PrimeFaces JAR file
    Search for primefaces-*.jar in your application's WEB-INF/lib directory, classpath, or inspect the pom.xml/build.gradle for the primefaces dependency declaration
    Affected if The version displayed is within 4.0 to 4.0.24, 5.0 to 5.2.20, or 5.3 to 5.3.7
  2. Verify ViewState saving is enabled
    Inspect the application's web.xml file for the javax.faces.STATE_SAVING_METHOD parameter - look for a value of 'server' or 'client' within the context-param section
    Affected if ViewState saving is set to 'server' and the application uses PrimeFaces components that serialize state
  3. Check for weak encryption configuration
    Inspect web.xml and PrimeFaces-specific configuration files for encryption parameters - look for any custom PRIMEFACES encryption keys, cipher settings, or the absence of the strong encryption flag introduced in 5.3
    Affected if The application uses default ViewState encryption without explicit strong cipher configuration, or uses the default state manager without the secure padding introduced in fixed versions
  4. Identify exposed stateful endpoints
    Review the application's JSF/PrimeFaces pages for components that retain state across requests, such as DataTables with pagination, form components with ajax updates, or any @ViewScoped beans
    Affected if The application uses stateful PrimeFaces components that serialize objects into the ViewState, creating deserialization attack surface

Your environment is affected if the deployed PrimeFaces version falls within the vulnerable ranges (4.0-4.0.24, 5.0-5.2.20, 5.3-5.3.7) and the application uses server-side ViewState saving with default encryption settings.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 5.2.21 / 5.3.8 or later
Fixed in 5.2.215.3.8
Interim mitigation

Upgrade PrimeFaces to the latest version (5.3+ or preferably latest stable) which addresses the weak encryption, and rotate any exposed keys or credentials.

Recommended fix High confidence

PrimeFaces 5.3.8 or later (or 5.2.21 for 5.2.x branch, or 4.0.25 for 4.0.x branch)

  1. 1. Identify the current PrimeFaces version in your project by checking your pom.xml (Maven) or build.gradle file, or by locating the primefaces JAR
  2. 2. For PrimeFaces 4.0.x: Upgrade to PrimeFaces 4.0.25 or later
  3. 3. For PrimeFaces 5.0.x through 5.2.x: Upgrade to PrimeFaces 5.2.21 or later
  4. 4. For PrimeFaces 5.3.x: Upgrade to PrimeFaces 5.3.8 or later
  5. 5. Update the dependency in your build configuration file (pom.xml example: change <version>5.3</version> to <version>5.3.8</version>)
  6. 6. Rebuild and redeploy your application
  7. 7. Verify the upgrade by confirming the new PrimeFaces version loads correctly in your application
Caveat Minimal; this is a security patch release. However, review any custom view state handling or encryption-related configurations after upgrade.

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Primefaces Exploited in the wild — priority engagement
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
16.0 hours of engineering $2,800
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2017-1000486 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data