Threats / Qlik / CVE-2023-41265
CVE-2023-41265
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Qlik Sense vulnerability
Qlik Sense contains an HTTP tunneling vulnerability enabling privilege escalation and arbitrary HTTP requests on backend servers. Actively exploited in ransomware campaigns.
Verdict
Today item, not a backlog item.
An unauthenticated or low-privileged attacker can tunnel HTTP requests through Qlik Sense to reach backend infrastructure, bypassing network controls and authentication boundaries. This enables lateral movement and system compromise.
CISA KEV Yes · 2023-12-073Ransomware use Flagged3EPSS 0.84967 (verify live)4Exploit Weaponized · public PoC5
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
469 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 2023-12-07), flagged for known ransomware use.
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.84967 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Qlik, Sense. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-444 HTTP Request Smuggling — weakness family: Web / client.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 craft malicious HTTP requests and tunnel them through the Qlik Sense application to reach backend servers that should be isolated from external access.
Business
Network segmentation controls fail, exposing internal infrastructure and sensitive systems to direct compromise.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I escalate my privileges within Qlik Sense by exploiting the tunneling mechanism to execute requests as a higher-privileged service account.
Business
Administrative access to analytics infrastructure is compromised, enabling data theft and system manipulation.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I use the compromised Qlik Sense instance as a pivot point to deploy ransomware payloads across connected backend systems and data repositories.
Business
Critical business intelligence systems and underlying databases are encrypted and held for ransom, halting analytics operations.
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