CVE-2025-49156: Trend Micro Apex One · Improper Privilege Management
Affects Trend Micro Apex OneSource CVE Database V5
Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.0 High.
Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 07:57 UTC
- EPSS
- 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 4% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HExploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 17 Jun 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors
A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-26.
What to do
AI-suggested
To mitigate this vulnerability effectively, European organizations should: 1) Immediately audit and monitor endpoints running Trend Micro Apex One 2019 (14.0) for signs of low-privileged code execution or suspicious local activity. 2) Restrict local user permissions rigorously to minimize the ability of unprivileged users or processes to execute code. 3) Employ application whitelisting and endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions to detect anomalous behavior indicative of privilege escalation attempts. 4) Isolate critical systems and enforce network segmentation to limit lateral movement if an endpoint is compromised. 5) Engage with Trend Micro support or security advisories to obtain any available patches or workarounds as soon as they are released. 6) Conduct regular security awareness training to reduce the risk of initial compromise vectors such as phishing. 7) Implement strict change management and logging to detect unauthorized modifications to security software components. 8) Consider upgrading to newer versions of Apex One if they are confirmed to be unaffected or patched. These steps go beyond generic advice by focusing on controlling local execution capabilities, enhancing detection of privilege escalation, and limiting attack surface within enterprise environments.
Description
A link following vulnerability in the Trend Micro Apex One scan engine could allow a local attacker to escalation privileges on affected installations. Please note: an attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.