ApplianceApplication · Tenable

CVE-2017-8051

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.0 Published 2017-04-21
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

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 · unedited
Tenable Appliance 3.5 - 4.4.0, and possibly prior versions, contains a flaw in the simpleupload.py script in the Web UI. Through the manipulation of the tns_appliance_session_user parameter, a remote attacker can inject arbitrary commands.

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
How this class of weakness works · CWE-78

User input reaches a shell or system command without being fully separated from the command itself, so an attacker can append their own instructions. Because these run with the application's privileges, it often means full control of the host. The lasting fix is to avoid the shell entirely — call APIs directly and pass arguments as data, never as concatenated strings.

General guidance for the os command injection class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

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
ApplianceApplication
Affected:= 3.4.0= 3.5.0= 3.5.1= 3.10.0= 3.10.1= 4.0.0= 4.1.0= 4.2.0= 4.3.0= 4.3.1= 4.4.0

CVSS 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

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.

dbcve · scoped
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch www.tenable.com →
Recommended fix Moderate confidence

Tenable Appliance 4.5.0 or later

  1. 1. Back up the current Tenable Appliance configuration and data before proceeding with any upgrade.
  2. 2. Review Tenable Appliance upgrade documentation for your current version.
  3. 3. Download Tenable Appliance version 4.5.0 or later from the official Tenable support portal.
  4. 4. Initiate the upgrade following Tenable's documented upgrade procedure for Appliance products.
  5. 5. After upgrade, verify the simpleupload.py script has been updated and the tns_appliance_session_user parameter is properly sanitized.
  6. 6. Test that the Web UI functions normally after the upgrade.
  7. 7. Confirm the vulnerability is no longer present by reviewing the TNS-2017-07 security advisory.
Caveat Review Tenable migration documentation for any configuration or compatibility changes between your current version and 4.5.0+; test in non-production environment first

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can apply and verify the patch for your build — typical engagement from $3,550. Get the patch applied

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-8051 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2017-8051 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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