Critical Trend Micro Apex One Vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-54948 & 54987): Securing Your Endpoint Management
In August 2025, Trend Micro issued an urgent advisory about two high-severity vulnerabilities in its Apex One endpoint protection platform, CVE-2025-54948 and CVE-2025-54987. The flaws affect on-premise deployments of Apex One and allow a remote attacker to perform command injection through the management console. According to The Hacker News, the vulnerabilities are rated 9.4 on the CVSS scale and have been exploited in the wild. The first bug stems from insufficient input validation, enabling an unauthenticated attacker to upload a malicious package and execute OS commands, while the second affects installations on a different CPU architecture. Trend Micro confirmed that at least one real-world exploitation attempt has been observed, which underscores the urgency to patch.
Why these vulnerabilities matter
Unlike many typical endpoint bugs, the Apex One issues can be triggered without authenticating to the admin console. A pre-auth attacker could take over the management server, push out malicious updates to all protected endpoints, disable protections, and pivot deeper into the network. Because Apex One often sits in a privileged position, compromise could allow lateral movement across the environment and long-term persistence. The vulnerabilities highlight the importance of code hardening and robust input sanitization; failing to sanitize user input opened the door to command injection, a mistake we still see across many enterprise apps.
Mitigation steps
Trend Micro released a temporary "smart scan pattern update tool" for on-premise customers while a permanent patch is being prepared for release in mid-August. Applying this tool disables the Remote Install Agent feature but closes the vulnerable endpoint. Customers using Apex One as a Service are already protected, as Trend Micro updated the hosted platform automatically. For on-premise deployments, we recommend the following additional steps:
- Restrict access to the management console so that only trusted IP addresses can connect. Many exploitation attempts rely on unauthenticated network access, so segmentation is key.
- Review firewall rules and ensure port 4343 (the Apex One console port) is not exposed to the internet.
- Monitor logs and alerts for unusual process launches or failed login attempts; early detection can prevent a partial breach from becoming a full system compromise.
- If the smart scan tool has been applied, plan for maintenance windows to deploy the permanent patch once it becomes available.
How Terra System Labs can help
Patch management and vulnerability mitigation are just one part of a holistic cyber defence strategy. Terra System Labs offers penetration testing, patch management reviews, and red team exercises that identify and exploit misconfigurations before criminals do. Our experts can simulate real-world exploits against your endpoint protection systems, highlight gaps in segmentation and hardening, and validate the effectiveness of vendor mitigation tools. By partnering with us you get a clearer view of your security posture and the assurance that emergent vulnerabilities like CVE-2025-54948 & CVE-2025-54987 are swiftly addressed.
Staying ahead of critical flaws requires constant vigilance and a culture of security awareness. Subscribe to our blog for updates on the latest threats, and contact Terra System Labs to schedule an Apex One security assessment.
Recent Posts
