CVE-2024-49624 in Advanced Advertising System Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 10/20/2024
Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in smartdevth Advanced Advertising System advanced-advertising-system allows Object Injection.This issue affects Advanced Advertising System: from n/a through <= 1.3.1.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/06/2026
The CVE-2024-49624 vulnerability represents a critical deserialization flaw within the smartdevth Advanced Advertising System, specifically impacting versions through 1.3.1. This vulnerability falls under the category of insecure deserialization, a common weakness that occurs when applications deserialize untrusted data without proper validation or sanitization. The issue enables attackers to inject malicious objects during the deserialization process, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution or complete system compromise. The vulnerability is classified as a deserialization of untrusted data, which aligns with CWE-502, a well-documented weakness in software security that has been consistently flagged in industry security assessments. The affected system processes serialized data that should be treated as untrusted input, creating an attack surface where malicious payloads can be executed within the application's context.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs when the Advanced Advertising System receives serialized data from external sources or user inputs that are then deserialized without adequate security controls. This flaw allows attackers to craft malicious serialized objects that, when processed by the vulnerable system, can trigger unintended behavior including remote code execution, data manipulation, or privilege escalation. The vulnerability is particularly dangerous because it leverages the inherent trust placed in serialized data processing, where the application assumes that incoming serialized objects are safe and legitimate. Attackers can manipulate the serialized data to include malicious object definitions that exploit the application's deserialization mechanism, potentially executing arbitrary code on the target system with the privileges of the affected application. This type of attack is categorized under the ATT&CK framework as T1203 - Exploitation for Client Execution, which involves leveraging vulnerabilities to execute malicious code on target systems.
The operational impact of CVE-2024-49624 extends beyond simple data corruption or system instability, as it can lead to complete system compromise and unauthorized access to sensitive advertising data. Organizations using the affected advertising system may experience unauthorized access to their advertising campaigns, user data, or campaign analytics, potentially resulting in financial losses, reputational damage, and regulatory compliance violations. The vulnerability can also facilitate lateral movement within networks if the advertising system has access to other internal resources or databases. Security teams may find that traditional network monitoring tools struggle to detect this specific attack vector because the malicious activity appears to be legitimate serialized data processing, making detection more challenging. The vulnerability affects the core functionality of the advertising system, potentially disrupting advertising operations and creating opportunities for attackers to manipulate advertising content or redirect traffic to malicious destinations.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2024-49624 should prioritize immediate patching of affected systems to the latest available version that addresses the deserialization vulnerability. Organizations should implement strict input validation and sanitization measures to prevent untrusted data from being processed as serialized objects, including the removal or disabling of unnecessary deserialization capabilities within the application. Network segmentation and access controls should be enforced to limit the potential impact of successful exploitation attempts, while comprehensive monitoring should be implemented to detect unusual deserialization activities or unauthorized access attempts. Security hardening measures should include disabling deserialization of untrusted data streams, implementing proper object type checking, and using alternative serialization formats that are less susceptible to manipulation. Organizations should also conduct thorough security assessments of their advertising systems to identify and remediate similar vulnerabilities, while establishing incident response procedures specifically designed to handle deserialization-based attacks. The remediation process should align with industry best practices for secure coding and application security, including adherence to secure deserialization guidelines and regular security testing to prevent future occurrences of similar vulnerabilities.