Tenable Nessus

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By the Year

In 2023 there have been 2 vulnerabilities in Tenable Nessus with an average score of 8.8 out of ten. Last year Nessus had 16 security vulnerabilities published. Right now, Nessus is on track to have less security vulnerabilities in 2023 than it did last year. However, the average CVE base score of the vulnerabilities in 2023 is greater by 0.55.

Year	Vulnerabilities	Average Score
2023	2	8.80
2022	16	8.25
2021	5	6.64
2020	2	6.25
2019	6	5.78
2018	5	6.22

It may take a day or so for new Nessus vulnerabilities to show up in the stats or in the list of recent security vulnerabilties. Additionally vulnerabilities may be tagged under a different product or component name.

Recent Tenable Nessus Security Vulnerabilities

As part of our Security Development Lifecycle, a potential privilege escalation issue was identified internally

CVE-2023-0524 8.8 - High - February 01, 2023

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.

A privilege escalation vulnerability was identified in Nessus versions 8.10.1 through 8.15.8 and 10.0.0 through 10.4.1

CVE-2023-0101 8.8 - High - January 20, 2023

A privilege escalation vulnerability was identified in Nessus versions 8.10.1 through 8.15.8 and 10.0.0 through 10.4.1. An authenticated attacker could potentially execute a specially crafted file to obtain root or NT AUTHORITY / SYSTEM privileges on the Nessus host.

Improper Privilege Management

An authenticated attacker could utilize the identical agent and cluster node linking keys to potentially

CVE-2022-3499 6.5 - Medium - October 31, 2022

An authenticated attacker could utilize the identical agent and cluster node linking keys to potentially allow for a scenario where unauthorized disclosure of agent logs and data is present.

Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File

An authenticated attacker could read Nessus Debug Log file attachments from the web UI without having the correct privileges to do so

CVE-2022-33757 6.5 - Medium - October 25, 2022

An authenticated attacker could read Nessus Debug Log file attachments from the web UI without having the correct privileges to do so. This may lead to the disclosure of information on the scan target and/or the Nessus scan to unauthorized parties able to reach the Nessus instance.

Improper Privilege Management

Insufficiently Protected Credentials: An authenticated user with debug privileges can retrieve stored Nessus policy credentials from the nessusd process in cleartext

CVE-2022-28291 6.5 - Medium - October 17, 2022

Insufficiently Protected Credentials: An authenticated user with debug privileges can retrieve stored Nessus policy credentials from the nessusd process in cleartext via process dumping. The affected products are all versions of Nessus Essentials and Professional. The vulnerability allows an attacker to access credentials stored in Nessus scanners, potentially compromising its customers network of assets.

Insufficiently Protected Credentials

An authenticated attacker could create an audit file

CVE-2022-32973 8.8 - High - June 21, 2022

An authenticated attacker could create an audit file that bypasses PowerShell cmdlet checks and executes commands with administrator privileges.

An authenticated attacker could read arbitrary files

CVE-2022-32974 6.5 - Medium - June 21, 2022

An authenticated attacker could read arbitrary files from the underlying operating system of the scanner using a custom crafted compliance audit file without providing any valid SSH credentials.

The BN_mod_sqrt() function, which computes a modular square root, contains a bug that can cause it to loop forever for non-prime moduli

CVE-2022-0778 7.5 - High - March 15, 2022

The BN_mod_sqrt() function, which computes a modular square root, contains a bug that can cause it to loop forever for non-prime moduli. Internally this function is used when parsing certificates that contain elliptic curve public keys in compressed form or explicit elliptic curve parameters with a base point encoded in compressed form. It is possible to trigger the infinite loop by crafting a certificate that has invalid explicit curve parameters. Since certificate parsing happens prior to verification of the certificate signature, any process that parses an externally supplied certificate may thus be subject to a denial of service attack. The infinite loop can also be reached when parsing crafted private keys as they can contain explicit elliptic curve parameters. Thus vulnerable situations include: - TLS clients consuming server certificates - TLS servers consuming client certificates - Hosting providers taking certificates or private keys from customers - Certificate authorities parsing certification requests from subscribers - Anything else which parses ASN.1 elliptic curve parameters Also any other applications that use the BN_mod_sqrt() where the attacker can control the parameter values are vulnerable to this DoS issue. In the OpenSSL 1.0.2 version the public key is not parsed during initial parsing of the certificate which makes it slightly harder to trigger the infinite loop. However any operation which requires the public key from the certificate will trigger the infinite loop. In particular the attacker can use a self-signed certificate to trigger the loop during verification of the certificate signature. This issue affects OpenSSL versions 1.0.2, 1.1.1 and 3.0. It was addressed in the releases of 1.1.1n and 3.0.2 on the 15th March 2022. Fixed in OpenSSL 3.0.2 (Affected 3.0.0,3.0.1). Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1n (Affected 1.1.1-1.1.1m). Fixed in OpenSSL 1.0.2zd (Affected 1.0.2-1.0.2zc).

Infinite Loop

Expat (aka libexpat) before 2.4.4 has an integer overflow in the doProlog function.

CVE-2022-23990 7.5 - High - January 26, 2022