CVE-2021-35965
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 Orca HCM digital learning platform uses a weak factory default administrator password, which is hard-coded in the source code of the webpage in plain text, thus remote attackers can obtain administrator’s privilege without logging in.
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 Orca HCM digital learning platform contains a hard-coded factory default administrator password stored in plain text within webpage source code. This allows remote unauthenticated attackers to gain full administrative privileges by using the exposed credential.
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<= 10.0CVSS 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
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/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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Confirm Orca HCM installationIdentify if the Learningdigital Orca HCM platform is deployed in your environment by checking for web application endpoints or installed components associated with this productAffected if Orca HCM is present and accessible in your environment
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Verify product versionDetermine the installed version of Orca HCM by checking application headers, about pages, or administration panels, then compare against the affected range (<= 10.0)Affected if Installed version is 10.0 or lower
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Inspect webpage source code for exposed credentialsView the page source of login or administration pages in a web browser, or retrieve HTML responses from the application, looking for plain-text credentials or hardcoded password strings embedded in scripts or HTMLAffected if A factory default administrator password is found in plain text within source code
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Test default administrator accountAttempt to log in to the administrative interface using the default username (such as 'admin' or 'administrator') and the known default password that may be exposed in source codeAffected if Authentication succeeds with default credentials, indicating the default password has not been changed
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Review authentication configurationCheck the Orca HCM configuration files, database, or administration settings to determine whether the administrator password has been changed from factory defaultsAffected if The administrator account still uses the factory default password or no password change has been documented
Your environment is affected if Orca HCM version 10.0 or lower is deployed and the default administrator password in the source code remains unchanged or accessible.
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 dataImmediately change the default administrator password to a strong, unique credential and remove any hardcoded credentials from source code. Implement proper secret management and conduct a thorough code review to identify other potential credential exposures.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 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 $1,984.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-35965 — 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-2021-35965 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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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.
- 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