NVD / CVE Program· CNA tenable

CVE-2023-0524: As part of our Security Development Lifecycle, a potential privilege escalation issue was identified internally.

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 35/100)

The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 0.63% (FIRST EPSS); higher than 50.5% of all records.
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.
According to the record, no fixed version is available yet.

Low priority for now. Update when a fix is released; follow the vendor's advisory.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

As part of our Security Development Lifecycle, a potential privilege escalation issue was identified internally. This could allow a malicious actor with sufficient permissions to modify environment variables and abuse an impacted plugin in order to escalate privileges. We have resolved the issue and also made several defense-in-depth fixes alongside. While the probability of successful exploitation is low, Tenable is committed to securing our customers’ environments and our products. The updates have been distributed via the Tenable plugin feed in feed serial numbers equal to or greater than #202212212055.

HighCVSS 8.8 · v3.1—No exploit No fix recorded

BDU:2023-00702

Published: Jan 31, 2023
Updated: Jun 17, 2026
EPSS: 0.6% · 50th percentile
CWE: CWE-269

Report tools

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Action score

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS: 35 / 40 · 8.8 / 10
CISA KEV: 0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS: 0 / 30 · 0.6%

CISA SSVC decision

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: total

Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.

Get told when this record changes

Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
No public exploit code on record
No fixed version yet

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Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

Vendor	Product	CPE
tenable	nessus	cpe:2.3:a:tenable:nessus
tenable	tenable.io	cpe:2.3:a:tenable:tenable.io
tenable	tenable.sc	cpe:2.3:a:tenable:tenable.sc

Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

tenable nessusall versions
tenable tenable.ioall versions
tenable tenable.scall versions

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.

n/a Tenable.io, Tenable.sc, Nessus
- Tenable plugin feed serial numbers less than #202212212055.affected

Same product

tenable: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

CVE-2023-2005Tenable Plugin Feed ID #202306261202 Fixes Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
35Monitor
CVE-2022-4313A vulnerability was reported where through modifying the scan variables, an authenticated user in Tenable products, that has Scan Policy Con
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

Published before and after this one in the same product

← EarlierCVE-2022-33757Oct 25, 2022 · An authenticated attacker could read Nessus Debug Log file attachments from the web UI without having the correct privileges to do so.
26Monitor
← EarlierCVE-2022-3499Oct 31, 2022 · An authenticated attacker could utilize the identical agent and cluster node linking keys to potentially allow for a scenario where unauthor
26Monitor
Later →CVE-2023-3251Aug 29, 2023 · Pass-back vulnerability in Nessus
19Monitor

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.

No history yet (it accumulates with the daily EPSS job).

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 researchers

Finders, 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

TenableHackerOne · disclosure only (VDP)

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: high · data can be read
Integrity: high · data or configuration can be modified
Availability: high · the service can be disrupted

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: Low
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality impact: High
Integrity impact: High
Availability impact: High

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

nvd-primary

Root cause

To simplify setup, a service account is granted broad, cluster-wide permissions. The principle of least privilege is skipped during installation.

The bug in code

The whole CWE-269 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

yaml

1kind: ClusterRole
2rules:
3  - apiGroups: ["*"]
4    resources: ["*"]
5    verbs: ["*"]

Fixed

yaml

1kind: Role
2metadata:
3  namespace: lodos-system
4rules:
5  - apiGroups: ["apps"]
6    resources: ["deployments"]
7    verbs: ["get", "list", "update"]

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

Attack patterns (CAPEC)

ATT&CK techniques

Abuse Elevation Control MechanismT1548

Change log

No changes recorded on tracked fields yet. Score, KEV, exploit maturity and fix status changes appear here.

References

www.tenable.com/security/tns-2023-04

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records