Unauthenticated ViewState Deserialization RCE in Digital Knowledge KnowledgeDeliver
CVE-2026-5426 is an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in Digital Knowledge KnowledgeDeliver deployments prior to February 24, 2026. The root cause is the use of hard-coded/shared ASP.NET machineKey values in a standardized vendor-supplied web.config configuration. Because ASP.NET uses machineKey material to sign and encrypt ViewState data, an attacker who knows the shared key can forge a malicious __VIEWSTATE payload that passes validation. The application then deserializes attacker-controlled ViewState data, resulting in code execution in the IIS/ASP.NET worker process context. Reporting indicates the flaw was exploited in the wild as a zero-day to deploy the Godzilla/BLUEBEAM web shell and follow-on payloads.
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Impact, mitigation & remediation
What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.
Impact
What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.
Mitigation
If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.
Remediation
Patch, then assume compromise.
Exploits
No valid public exploits. Mallory filtered out 1 candidate as fakes, detection scripts, or README-only repos.
All candidate exploits were filtered out by Mallory's validation.
Affected products & vendors
Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.
Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.
Recent activity
43 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
A critical zero-day deserialization vulnerability in KnowledgeDeliver LMS caused by shared hardcoded ASP.NET machine keys in the web portal configuration, enabling unauthenticated ViewState deserialization and OS-level remote code execution.
A high-severity zero-day remote code execution vulnerability in Digital Knowledge KnowledgeDeliver caused by hard-coded ASP.NET machine keys, enabling unauthenticated ViewState deserialization attacks against internet-facing deployments.
A high-severity unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in Digital Knowledge KnowledgeDeliver caused by hard-coded ASP.NET machine keys enabling ViewState deserialization attacks.
An unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in KnowledgeDeliver LMS caused by shared/hardcoded ASP.NET machine keys that allow attackers to forge malicious ViewState payloads and trigger deserialization of untrusted data.
The version that knows your environment.
Query your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.
Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.
Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.
Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.