CVE-1999-1355
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedBMC Patrol component, when installed with Compaq Insight Management Agent 4.23 and earlier, or Management Agents for Servers 4.40 and earlier, creates a PFCUser account with a default password and potentially dangerous privileges.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceThe BMC Patrol component creates a local Windows account called 'PFCUser' with a default password when installed alongside Compaq Insight Management Agent 4.23 and earlier or Management Agents for Servers 4.40 and earlier. This account is provisioned with potentially dangerous privileges, creating an easily exploitable default credential vector.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data<= 4.20<= 4.40CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Partial
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check if Compaq Insight Management Agent is installedOpen Windows Control Panel > Programs and Features, or run 'wmic product get name,version' to list installed software. Look for 'Compaq Insight Management Agent' and note its version number.Affected if The version is 4.20 or lower (e.g., 4.20, 4.10, etc.)
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Check if Compaq Management Agents For Servers is installedOpen Windows Control Panel > Programs and Features, or run 'wmic product get name,version' to list installed software. Look for 'Compaq Management Agents For Servers' and note its version number.Affected if The version is 4.40 or lower (e.g., 4.40, 4.30, etc.)
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Check if BMC Patrol component is installedOpen Windows Control Panel > Programs and Features, or run 'wmic product get name' to list installed software. Look for any BMC Patrol component.Affected if Any BMC Patrol component is installed alongside either affected Compaq agent.
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Check if PFCUser local account existsOpen Computer Management > Local Users and Groups > Users, or run 'net user' command in Command Prompt. Look for a user account named 'PFCUser'.Affected if The PFCUser account exists on the system.
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Check PFCUser account privilegesRight-click the PFCUser account in Computer Management and select Properties, or run 'net user PFCUser' to view account details. Examine the membership in Groups tab.Affected if The PFCUser account has elevated privileges such as Administrators group membership or other potentially dangerous rights.
Your system is affected if either Compaq Insight Management Agent <= 4.20 or Compaq Management Agents For Servers <= 4.40 is installed alongside BMC Patrol, and the PFCUser local account exists on the system with default credentials.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataImmediately change the password for the PFCUser account or disable the account entirely if not required, then verify the account is not exposed to untrusted networks.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing1.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-1999-1355 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-1999-1355 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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