CVE-2017-11194
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 · uneditedPulse Connect Secure 8.3R1 has Reflected XSS in adminservercacertdetails.cgi. In the admin panel, the certid parameter of adminservercacertdetails.cgi is reflected in the application's response and is not properly sanitized, allowing an attacker to inject tags. An attacker could come up with clever payloads to make the system run commands such as ping, ping6, traceroute, nslookup, arp, etc.
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 confidenceReflected XSS in Pulse Connect Secure 8.3R1 admin panel. The certid parameter in adminservercacertdetails.cgi is not properly sanitized, allowing injection of malicious HTML/script tags. The description indicates this can be leveraged to execute system commands (ping, traceroute, nslookup, arp) on the underlying system.
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= 8.3r1.0CVSS 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
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
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 Pulse Connect Secure versionAccess the admin interface or system information page, typically at /admin or check the system diagnostics page. Look for the exact version string displayed in the admin panel under System > Status or About section.Affected if The displayed version equals exactly 8.3r1.0 (8.3r1.0)
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Verify admin panel accessibilityConfirm the Pulse Connect Secure admin web interface is reachable. The vulnerable endpoint adminservercacertdetails.cgi is part of the admin panel.Affected if The admin panel is accessible over the network (even if behind authentication)
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Locate the vulnerable CGI endpointNavigate to or attempt access to the adminservercacertdetails.cgi script within the admin interface. This is typically found under Certificate Management or CA Certificate settings.Affected if The adminservercacertdetails.cgi endpoint responds to requests
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Confirm XSS vulnerability via certid parameterSubmit a test request to adminservercacertdetails.cgi with a benign XSS probe in the certid parameter (for example: ?certid=<script>alert(1)</script>). Observe if the parameter value is reflected unescaped in the response.Affected if The certid parameter value is reflected in the response without HTML encoding
You are affected if running Pulse Connect Secure version 8.3r1.0 and the admin panel with the adminservercacertdetails.cgi endpoint is accessible, since this exact version contains the reflected XSS in the certid parameter.
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 proper input validation and output encoding for the certid parameter in adminservercacertdetails.cgi. Sanitize all user-supplied input before reflecting it in responses. Consider implementing CSP headers as defense-in-depth.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-11194 — 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-2017-11194 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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