CVE-2017-7849
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 · uneditedNessus 6.10.x before 6.10.5 was found to be vulnerable to a local denial of service condition due to insecure permissions when running in Agent Mode.
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 confidenceNessus 6.10.x before 6.10.5 running in Agent Mode has insecure file permissions that allow a local attacker to cause a denial of service by modifying or corrupting critical configuration or runtime files used by the Nessus Agent service.
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= 6.10.0= 6.10.1= 6.10.2= 6.10.3= 6.10.4CVSS 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
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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 Nessus Agent installationCheck for the presence of Nessus Agent executables and directories. On Windows, look in C:\Program Files\Tenable\Nessus Agent or C:\Program Files (x86)\Tenable\Nessus Agent. On Linux, check /opt/nessus_agent/ or /opt/nessus/. On macOS, check /Library/Nessus Agent or /Applications/Nessus Agent.app.Affected if Nessus Agent is not installed on the system.
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Confirm Nessus Agent versionRun 'nessuscli --version' or 'nessusd -v' from the Nessus Agent bin directory, or check the version displayed in the Nessus Agent user interface (Help > About). Compare the installed version against the affected range: 6.10.0, 6.10.1, 6.10.2, 6.10.3, or 6.10.4.Affected if The installed version is any of 6.10.0, 6.10.1, 6.10.2, 6.10.3, or 6.10.4.
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Confirm Agent Mode is enabledCheck if Nessus is running in Agent Mode rather than Nessus Manager or standalone. On the Nessus Agent host, access the agent configuration (nessusd.yaml or via the web interface) and verify the 'agent_mode' or 'mode' setting is set to 'agent', or confirm the system is registered to a Nessus Manager.Affected if Nessus is running in Agent Mode and linked to a Nessus Manager.
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Inspect file permissions on configuration directoriesReview file permissions on the Nessus Agent data directory (e.g., /opt/nessus_agent/var/nessus on Linux, C:\ProgramData\Tenable\Nessus\nessus on Windows). Use 'ls -la' on Linux or inspect Security permissions on Windows. Verify that non-privileged users have write access to configuration files in conf/ or config/ subdirectories.Affected if Non-administrator users have write permissions to critical configuration files or the nessusd.yaml file in the Nessus Agent directory.
A system is affected if Nessus Agent version 6.10.0 through 6.10.4 is installed and running in Agent Mode with overly permissive file permissions on configuration or runtime files.
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 dataApply proper restrictive file permissions to Nessus Agent directories and configuration files, or upgrade to Nessus 6.10.5 or later which contains the security fix.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,560.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-7849 — 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-2017-7849 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