CVE-2022-22965 remediation guide
VMware Spring Framework
A Spring MVC or Spring WebFlux application running on JDK 9+ may be vulnerable to remote code execution (RCE) via data binding. The specific exploit requires the application to run on Tomcat as a WAR deployment. If the application is deployed as a Spring Boot executable jar, i.e. the default, it is not vulnerable to the exploit. However, the nature of the vulnerability is more general, and there may be other ways to exploit it.
Identify the affected asset
Confirm whether VMware Spring Framework is installed, record the deployed version and installation path, and identify exposed interfaces.
- Record the product name, package or appliance identifier, and installed version.
- Identify internet-facing, administrative, API, and internal access paths.
- Preserve the pre-change configuration and relevant service logs.
Validate the affected-version match
Compare the deployed version with the affected range: Spring Framework versions 5.3.X prior to 5.3.18+, 5.2.x prior to 5.2.20+ and all old and unsupported versions, < 5.2.20, >= 5.3.0 < 5.3.18, < 2.1.0, 1.9.0, 22.1.0, 1.10.0, 1.15.0, 1.8.0, 1.7.0, 12.6.0.0.0, 8.1.1, 8.1.2.0, 8.1.1.0, 8.1.1.1, < 8.0.29, 3.6.1, 20.0.1, 21.0.0, 9.0. Treat incomplete inventory results as unresolved.
Prioritize with independent signals
CISA has listed this vulnerability in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Combine this signal with asset criticality, exposure, compensating controls, and business impact.
Apply supported remediation
Apply updates per vendor instructions.
Verify the result
Confirm the resulting version, service health, authentication and access paths, monitoring coverage, and relevant security logs.
- Confirm the expected version and package state.
- Run a functional health check for critical service paths.
- Review authentication, error, application, and security monitoring logs.
- Reassess exposure if the supported fix cannot be applied.
Operational boundary
This page does not replace the vendor advisory, support contract, change-management process, or recovery plan. Do not infer that an asset is unaffected from an incomplete inventory query or a missing fixed-version field.