CVE-2016-9092
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 · uneditedThe Symantec Content Analysis (CA) 1.3, 2.x prior to 2.2.1.1, and Mail Threat Defense (MTD) 1.1 management consoles are susceptible to a cross-site request forging (CSRF) vulnerability. A remote attacker can use phishing or other social engineering techniques to access the management console with the privileges of an authenticated administrator user.
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 · high confidenceThe Symantec Content Analysis and Mail Threat Defense management consoles lack anti-CSRF tokens on state-changing operations, allowing attackers to craft malicious requests that execute with the privileges of an authenticated administrator user.
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= 1.3= 2.1= 1.1CVSS 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
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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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Identify installed product and versionLocate the Symantec Content Analysis or Mail Threat Defense installation and determine the exact version number (1.3 or 2.1 for Content Analysis; 1.1 for Mail Threat Defense)Affected if The installed version matches 1.3 or 2.1 for Content Analysis, or 1.1 for Mail Threat Defense
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Access the management consoleNavigate to the web-based management interface of the installed productAffected if The management console is accessible and reachable
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Inspect state-changing forms for CSRF tokensExamine the HTML source of forms that perform state-changing operations (such as configuration changes, user management, or system settings) and verify whether each form includes a unique anti-CSRF token as a hidden fieldAffected if Forms lack anti-CSRF token hidden fields (such as tokens named csrf_token, nonce, or similar) in the HTML markup
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Check token validation on form submissionSubmit a state-changing request without the expected CSRF token parameter to see if the operation is still accepted by the serverAffected if The server accepts and processes the request without validating a CSRF token
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Verify Origin/Referer header validationSend a state-changing POST request with an mismatched or missing Origin/Referer header to see if the server validates these headersAffected if The server accepts requests with missing or unvalidated Origin/Referer headers
A user is affected if they are running Content Analysis version 1.3 or 2.1, or Mail Threat Defense version 1.1, and the management console forms on state-changing endpoints lack anti-CSRF token implementation and do not validate Origin/Referer headers.
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 dataImplement anti-CSRF tokens on all forms and state-changing endpoints, and validate the Origin/Referer headers on POST requests.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,800.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2016-9092 — 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-2016-9092 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
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data