ServiceNow has revealed details of a critical vulnerability—now patched—in its AI Platform that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to impersonate any user and execute actions with that user’s privileges. Review this Cybersecurity Threat Advisory now to mitigate your risk and protect your clients’ environments.
What is the threat?
CVE-2025-12420 is a critical security vulnerability with a CVSS score of 9.3 to 10.0. Found in the ServiceNow AI Platform, it allows an unauthenticated attacker to impersonate another user and perform arbitrary actions with that user’s privileges. ServiceNow has released patches for hosted instances and provided updates to partners and self-hosted customers to mitigate the risk.
Why is this noteworthy?
- The CVSS score ranges from 9.3 to 10.0, reflecting significant impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
- Attackers do not need valid credentials to exploit this flaw.
- Successful exploitation enables attackers to perform operations at the permission level of any impersonated user, including high privilege actions.
- ServiceNow deployed updates on October 30, 2025, before public disclosure, for most hosted instances and shared fixes with self-hosted customers.
- At disclosure time, ServiceNow reported no active attacks in the wild.
What is the exposure or risk?
- Organizations using ServiceNow AI Platform components—such as Now Assist AI Agents and Virtual Agent API—were potentially exposed prior to patching.
- The vulnerability’s exploitability means attackers could impersonate legitimate users and execute any permitted operations, exposing sensitive data and enabling unauthorized configuration changes or privilege escalation.
- Self-hosted deployments and partners that had not applied the October 2025 security updates remained at risk until remediation.
What are the recommendations?
- Apply official ServiceNow security updates addressing CVE-2025-12420 on all hosted and self-hosted instances immediately.
- Verify Store Applications mentioned in the advisory (e.g., Now Assist AI Agents, Virtual Agent API) are updated to patched versions as documented.
- Review configurations and logs for unusual impersonation activity, especially prior to the October 30, 2025 patch deployment.
- Monitor ServiceNow advisories and KB articles for ongoing updates or mitigation guidance.
References
- https://www.tenable.com/cve/CVE-2025-12420/
- https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2025-12420/
- https://thehackernews.com/2026/01/servicenow-patches-critical-ai-platform.html
- https://securityonline.info/ai-identity-theft-critical-servicenow-flaw-cve-2025-12420-allows-unauthenticated-impersonation/
If you have any questions about this Cybersecurity Threat Advisory, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Barracuda Managed XDR’s Security Operations Center.
