{"id":"CVE-2018-15490","url":"https://www.cyber-defence.io/tools/cve/CVE-2018-15490","generatedAt":"2026-10-29T02:03:54.197Z","title":"The JSON-RPC XVPN.GetPreference and XVPN.SetPreference methods are vulnerable to path traversal, and allow reading and writing files on the file system on behalf of the service.","description":"An issue was discovered in ExpressVPN on Windows. The Xvpnd.exe process (which runs as a service with SYSTEM privileges) listens on TCP port 2015, which is used as an RPC interface for communication with the client side of the ExpressVPN application. A JSON-RPC protocol over HTTP is used for communication. The JSON-RPC XVPN.GetPreference and XVPN.SetPreference methods are vulnerable to path traversal, and allow reading and writing files on the file system on behalf of the service.","published":"2019-01-02T18:29:01.000Z","lastModified":"2026-06-17T01:42:37.000Z","status":"Modified","sourceIdentifier":"cve@mitre.org","cvss":{"version":"3.0","score":7.1,"severity":"HIGH","vector":"CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N"},"cwe":["CWE-22"],"affected":["expressvpn/expressvpn"],"epss":{"score":0.00609,"percentile":0.48961,"date":"2026-10-27","history":[]},"kev":{"listed":false},"exploits":{"count":0,"verified":false,"firstPublished":null,"source":"Exploit-DB (https://gitlab.com/exploit-database/exploitdb)","entries":[]},"verdict":{"level":"high","text":"High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.61%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit."},"changes":[],"references":[{"url":"https://medium.com/%40Wflki/https-medium-com-wflki-cve-2018-15490-expressvpn-local-privilege-escalation-d22c86fecc47","source":"cve@mitre.org"},{"url":"https://medium.com/%40Wflki/https-medium-com-wflki-cve-2018-15490-expressvpn-local-privilege-escalation-d22c86fecc47","source":"af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108"}],"sources":{"nvd":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-15490","epss":"https://www.first.org/epss/","kev":"https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog","exploitdb":"https://www.exploit-db.com/"},"licence":"CC BY 4.0 — link back to the CVE Explorer if you publish the results; upstream data remains subject to its own terms."}