Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA): authentication bypass flaw under attack

What is affected

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) 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.

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) contains an improper authentication vulnerability that could allow attackers to impersonate legitimate users without valid credentials.

What an attacker can do

This is a authentication bypass flaw. It lets an attacker get in without a valid username and password and act as a legitimate user, often as an administrator.

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 Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) 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

• support.quest.comsupport.quest.com/kb/4379499/quest-response-to-kace-sma-vulnerabilities-cve-2025-32975-cve

How urgent is it

CISA added this vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue on April 20, 2026, which means there is reliable evidence of attacks in the wild. US federal agencies must fix it by May 4, 2026, 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 2.5% probability that this flaw will be exploited somewhere in the next 30 days. That is higher than 84% of all scored vulnerabilities.

Its CVSS severity score is 10.0 out of 10 (critical), as recorded in the US National Vulnerability Database.

Technical description

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) 13.0.x before 13.0.385, 13.1.x before 13.1.81, 13.2.x before 13.2.183, 14.0.x before 14.0.341 (Patch 5), and 14.1.x before 14.1.101 (Patch 4) contains an authentication bypass vulnerability that allows attackers to impersonate legitimate users without valid credentials. The vulnerability exists in the SSO authentication handling mechanism and can lead to complete administrative takeover.