Threats / Laravel / CVE-2018-15133
CVE-2018-15133
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Laravel Framework vulnerability
Laravel Framework contains a deserialization vulnerability (CWE-502) enabling remote command execution when an attacker possesses the application encryption key.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An authenticated attacker with access to the APP_KEY environment variable can exploit unsafe deserialization to achieve remote code execution on affected Laravel instances. This vulnerability has been observed in active exploitation.
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreExploit available
Fully weaponized — public exploit code is cataloged for this vulnerability.We link the existence of the exploit; we do not host or redistribute payloads.
Reported exploitation
10 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2024-01-16).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.76814 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Laravel, Laravel Framework. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-502 Deserialization of Untrusted Data — weakness family: Injection.CWE assignment from the public NVD record; the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I obtain or compromise the application's encryption key (APP_KEY) through environment variable exposure, configuration disclosure, or insider access.
Business
Exposure of encryption keys indicates inadequate secrets management and environmental security controls.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I craft a malicious serialized payload and inject it into a deserialization point within the Laravel application.
Business
Lack of input validation on deserialization operations creates a direct path to code execution.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I execute arbitrary commands on the server with the privileges of the web application process.
Business
Complete compromise of application integrity, confidentiality, and availability; potential lateral movement to backend systems.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05