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Improper Certificate Validation

CVE-2020-5812

Severity Medium
Score 5.9/10

Summary

Nessus AMI versions 8.12.0 and earlier were found to either not validate, or incorrectly validate, a certificate which could allow an attacker to spoof a trusted entity by using a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack.

  • HIGH
  • NETWORK
  • HIGH
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • NONE

CWE-295 - Improper Certificate Validation

The authenticity component of a web system stems from the ability to validate “Digital certificates”, which (i) establish trust between two or more entities sharing data over a network; (ii) ensure data at rest and transit is secure from unauthorized access; and (iii) check the identity of the actors that interact with the system. An application with absent or ineffective certificate validation mechanisms allows malicious users, impersonating trusted hosts, to manipulate the communication path between the client and the host, resulting in unauthorized access to data and to the application’s internal environment, and potentially enabling man-in-the-middle attacks.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published