Possible Metabase Pre-Auth RCE via H2 JDBC Injection on Setup Validate (CVE-2023-38646) (via webserver)
- Category
- webserver
- Author
- HuntRule
- Published
- 2026-05-19
- Updated
- 2026-08-28
ATT&CK techniques
Initial Access → ExecutionRecon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
What it detects
This rule detects requests to the Metabase setup validate endpoint carrying an H2 JDBC connection string with a trace level directive referencing the application jar. This maps to CVE-2023-38646 where a leaked setup token allows unauthenticated H2 injection to write and execute code. An attacker uses this chain to achieve remote code execution before authentication.
Reporting behind it
Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.
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