Improper authorization in Nessus
An improper authorization vulnerability exists where an authenticated, low privileged remote attacker could view a list of all the users available in the application.
- Published
- Aug 29, 2023
- Updated
- Jun 17, 2026
- EPSS
- 0.5% · 42th percentile
- CWE
- CWE-863
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Report tools
Action score
17
Monitor
Low priority for now.
- CVSS
- 17 / 40 · 4.3 / 10
- CISA KEV
- 0 / 30 · Not listed
- EPSS
- 0 / 30 · 0.5%
CISA SSVC decision
- Exploitation
- none
- Automatable
- no
- Technical impact
- partial
Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.
CNA vs NVD score
- NVD
- 4.3
- CNA · tenable
- 4.3
- agree
The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.
Affected systems
| Vendor | Product | CPE |
|---|---|---|
| tenable | nessus | cpe:2.3:a:tenable:nessus |
Affected versions
NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.
- tenable nessusbefore 10.6.0
Versions reported by the vendor
Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (tenable). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.
Tenable Nessus
- before 10.6.0affected
Same product
tenable: all recordsOther highest-scoring records for the same primary product.
- CVE-2023-2005Tenable Plugin Feed ID #202306261202 Fixes Privilege Escalation Vulnerability35Monitor
- CVE-2022-4313A vulnerability was reported where through modifying the scan variables, an authenticated user in Tenable products, that has Scan Policy Con35Monitor
- CVE-2023-0524As part of our Security Development Lifecycle, a potential privilege escalation issue was identified internally.35Monitor
- CVE-2023-0101A privilege escalation vulnerability was identified in Nessus versions 8.10.1 through 8.15.8 and 10.0.0 through 10.4.1.35Monitor
- CVE-2022-32973An authenticated attacker could create an audit file that bypasses PowerShell cmdlet checks and executes commands with administrator privile35Monitor
- CVE-2019-3974Nessus 8.5.2 and earlier on Windows platforms were found to contain an issue where certain system files could be overwritten arbitrarily, po33Monitor
Remediation
Which version to upgrade to
Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.
No fix version is recorded for this entry. Check the references for vendor advisories.
Exploit status
No known public exploit
No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.
Research context
For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.
Timeline
From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.
No dated events beyond publication.
FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).
Patch and commit links
Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.
No commit or PR link among the references.
Credits
All researchersFinders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.
No credits in the CNA record.
Variant candidates
Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.
No nightly-computed relations.
Chain candidates
An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.
—
Bug bounty scope
The product’s vendor appears in a public program. Matched by name; verify the scope text in the program.
Technical details
Attack conditions
- Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
- A low-privileged account is enough.
- No user action is required.
- No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
If successful
- Confidentiality
- low · data can be read
- Integrity
- none
- Availability
- none
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality impact
- Low
- Integrity impact
- None
- Availability impact
- None
Weakness class (CWE)
CWE-863 · Incorrect AuthorizationCVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
nvd-primary
Attack context
MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.
MITRE has no CAPEC/ATT&CK mapping for this CWE.
Noroxi analysis
No Noroxi analysis for this record yet
We don't hand-write analysis for all 385,000+ vulnerabilities; that wouldn't be honest. For notable, high-impact vulnerabilities our team writes the mechanism, detection and remediation steps.
We use this product, ask for helpChange log
No changes recorded on tracked fields yet. Score, KEV, exploit maturity and fix status changes appear here.
References
Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.