Nessus
CVE-2022-28291
MEDIUM
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V6 - Authentication Credential protection in transit/storage
|
| Impact | CVSS score of 6.5 (MEDIUM). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, low privileges required, no user interaction not required. Public proof-of-concept exploit code is available. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote attacker could obtain user credentials due to weak protection mechanisms by sending crafted requests to the affected application. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
Insufficiently Protected Credentials: An authenticated user with debug privileges can retrieve stored Nessus policy credentials from the “nessusd” process in cleartext via process dumping. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
RemediationAI
No vendor patch is available at time of analysis. Monitor vendor advisories for updates. Hash passwords with strong algorithms (bcrypt, argon2), encrypt credentials in transit and at rest, never log credentials.
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Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as Insufficiently Protected Credentials (CWE-522), which allows attackers to obtain user credentials due to weak protection mechanisms. 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. Affected products include: Tenable Nessus.
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- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
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.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
An OpenSSL TLS server may crash if sent a maliciously crafted renegotiation ClientHello message from a client. Rated med
The BN_mod_sqrt() function, which computes a modular square root, contains a bug that can cause it to loop forever for n
The X509_V_FLAG_X509_STRICT flag enables additional security checks of the certificates present in a certificate chain.
The duration function in the moment package before 2.11.2 for Node.js allows remote attackers to cause a denial of servi
Simultaneous Multi-threading (SMT) in processors can enable local users to exploit software vulnerable to timing attacks
The /server/properties resource in Tenable Web UI before 2.3.5 for Nessus 5.2.3 through 5.2.7 allows remote attackers to
Vulnerability in Tenable Tenable.Io, Tenable Nessus, Tenable Security Center.Io: before Plugin Feed ID #202306261202 ; N
As part of our Security Development Lifecycle, a potential privilege escalation issue was identified internally. Rated h
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 create an audit file that bypasses PowerShell cmdlet checks and executes commands with a
Authenticated SQL injection in Tenable Nessus lets any user with a valid low-privilege Nessus account read or modify dat
In Tenable Nessus versions prior to 10.8.5 on a Windows host, it was found that a non-administrative user could overwrit
GitHub PoC
Exploit-DB