CVE-2023-0524: tenable nessus Improper Privilege Management

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2023-0524 is a high (CVSS 8.8) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in tenable nessus. EPSS estimates a 0.64% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 49.6% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 01-02-2023
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 27-03-2025
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

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.

• CWE-269Improper Privilege ManagementThe product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.