CVE-2021-44029: Quest KACE Desktop Authority

Critical severity, CVSS 9.8. EPSS: 0.9% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

An issue was discovered in Quest KACE Desktop Authority before 11.2. This vulnerability allows attackers to execute remote code through a deserialization exploitation in the RadAsyncUpload function of ASP.NET AJAX. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability when the encryption keys are known (due to the presence of CVE-2017-11317, CVE-2017-11357, or other means). A default setting for the type whitelisting feature in more current versions of ASP.NET AJAX prevents exploitation.

Affected products

• Quest KACE Desktop Authority: from 10.0, before 11.2 (fixed in 11.2)

Published 2021-12-22. Last modified 2026-06-17.