SolarWinds Orion Platform before 2020.2.4, as used by various SolarWinds products, installs and uses a SQL Server backend, and stores database credentials to access this backend in a file readable by unprivileged users. As a result, any user having access to the filesystem can read database login details from that file, including the login name and its associated password. Then, the credentials can be used to get database owner access to the SWNetPerfMon.DB database. This gives access to the data collected by SolarWinds applications, and leads to admin access to the applications by inserting or changing authentication data stored in the Accounts table of the database.

The Collector Service in SolarWinds Orion Platform before 2020.2.4 uses MSMQ (Microsoft Message Queue) and doesn't set permissions on its private queues. As a result, remote unauthenticated clients can send messages to TCP port 1801 that the Collector Service will process. Additionally, upon processing of such messages, the service deserializes them in insecure manner, allowing remote arbitrary code execution as LocalSystem.