Gladinet CentreStack: code execution flaw under attack

What is affected

Gladinet CentreStack is mostly run by companies, schools and public bodies, not on home computers. You are unlikely to have it yourself, but organisations that hold your data may. Breaches that start with flaws like this one are how personal data ends up leaked.

Gladinet CentreStack and Triofox contains a use of hard-coded cryptographic key vulnerability in the way that the application manages keys used for ViewState integrity verification. Successful exploitation allows an attacker to forge ViewState payloads for server-side deserialization, allowing for remote code execution.

What an attacker can do

This is a code execution flaw. It lets an attacker run their own commands or programs on the affected system. In practice that usually means taking it over: installing malware, stealing data or using it to reach other devices on the same network.

How it is reached

Over the internet or network

Access the attacker needs

No account needed

Does the victim have to do something?

No, works without the victim doing anything

What to do

1. At home: nothing to install. Keep your own devices updated and use a different password for every service, so that a breach at one organisation does not open your other accounts.
2. If you administer Gladinet CentreStack at work: apply the vendor's fix or mitigation now and review logs for signs of compromise, because the flaw was being exploited before it was listed.
3. If the product is past its support date and no fix exists, take it off the internet or retire it.

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Vendor advisories and fixes

• gladinetsupport.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.comgladinetsupport.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/gladinet/securityadvisory-cve-2005.pdf
• gladinetsupport.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.comgladinetsupport.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/gladinet/securityadvisory-cve-2025-triofox.pdf

How urgent is it

CISA added this vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue on April 8, 2025, which means there is reliable evidence of attacks in the wild. US federal agencies must fix it by April 29, 2025, a deadline that has already passed. That deadline does not bind anyone else, but it shows how seriously the agency rates it.

The EPSS model estimates a 94% probability that this flaw will be exploited somewhere in the next 30 days. That is higher than 99.9% of all scored vulnerabilities.

Its CVSS severity score is 9.8 out of 10 (critical), as recorded in the US National Vulnerability Database.

Technical description

Gladinet CentreStack through 16.1.10296.56315 (fixed in 16.4.10315.56368) has a deserialization vulnerability due to the CentreStack portal's hardcoded machineKey use, as exploited in the wild in March 2025. This enables threat actors (who know the machineKey) to serialize a payload for server-side deserialization to achieve remote code execution. NOTE: a CentreStack admin can manually delete the machineKey defined in portal\web.config.