CVE-2017-15999
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 · uneditedIn the "NQ Contacts Backup & Restore" application 1.1 for Android, no HTTPS is used for transmitting login and synced user data. When logging in, the username is transmitted in cleartext along with an SHA-1 hash of the password. The attacker can either crack this hash or use it for further attacks where only the hash value is required.
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 NQ Contacts Backup & Restore Android app (v1.1) transmits user credentials without encryption - username in cleartext and SHA-1 password hash over unencrypted HTTP. Attackers on the same network can intercept these values via MitM and either crack the weak SHA-1 hash or use the hash directly for authentication replay attacks.
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= 1.1CVSS 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
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/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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Verify installed app versionOn the Android device, go to Settings > Apps > NQ Contacts Backup & Restore, then check the Version field under App info. Confirm the version number is exactly 1.1.Affected if Version shows 1.1 (the only affected version listed)
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Capture network traffic during loginConfigure a network proxy (such as Burp Suite or Wireshark) on the same network as the Android device. Start capturing traffic, then attempt to log into the app using valid credentials.Affected if HTTP (not HTTPS) traffic is observed on port 80 containing the login request to the app's server
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Inspect credential transmission formatExamine the captured HTTP request body from the login operation. Look for the username field and the password-related field.Affected if The username appears in cleartext and the password field contains a SHA-1 hash (40-character hexadecimal string, recognizable as the SHA-1 format)
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Confirm lack of TLS encryptionIn the captured network traffic, verify that no TLS/SSL handshake (port 443, HTTPS) occurs prior to the credential transmission. The entire authentication request travels over plain HTTP.Affected if The login request uses unencrypted HTTP without any TLS wrapper
If the app version is 1.1 and network analysis shows credentials being sent over unencrypted HTTP with a SHA-1 hash, the environment is vulnerable to CVE-2017-15999.
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 dataEnforce HTTPS/TLS for all network communications and replace SHA-1 with a modern salted password hashing algorithm like Argon2, bcrypt, or scrypt.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation6.0 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 $3,904.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-15999 — 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-2017-15999 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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