Hard-coded CredentialsWeakness · CWE-798

CVE-2024-48971

CRITICAL · 9.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-11-14
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
98/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
No privileges Zero-click

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
The Clinician Password and Serial Number Clinician Password are hard-coded into the ventilator in plaintext form. This could allow an attacker to obtain the password off the ventilator and use it to gain unauthorized access to the device, with clinician privileges.

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 confidence

Hardcoded plaintext clinician passwords and serial numbers are embedded in the ventilator firmware. An attacker who obtains these credentials can authenticate to the device with clinician-level privileges, potentially gaining control over ventilator settings and operation.

MitigationVendor should release firmware update removing hardcoded credentials and implementing proper credential storage (e.g., salted hashing). Until then, network segmentation and access controls should be enforced to limit exposure of the device.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify ventilator devices in your environment
    Review network scans, asset inventories, or device logs to catalog all medical ventilator devices. Note the manufacturer, model number, and network location of each device.
    Affected if Ventilator devices from any manufacturer are present on the network
  2. Determine firmware version of each ventilator
    Access the device management interface, web UI, or clinical software. Check the firmware version reported in system information, about pages, or device diagnostics. Record the exact version string.
    Affected if Firmware version cannot be determined or differs from vendor-published fixed versions
  3. Consult vendor security advisory for CVE-2024-48971
    Check the ventilator manufacturer's website, security advisory page, or contact support directly. Ask whether this CVE applies to your specific device model and firmware version.
    Affected if Vendor confirms the model and firmware version are affected by this CVE, or no patch is available yet
  4. Assess network exposure of ventilator devices
    Review firewall rules, network segments, and access control lists to determine if the ventilator management interfaces are accessible from untrusted networks, the internet, or unauthorized VLANs.
    Affected if Ventilator management or clinical interfaces are reachable from outside the clinical network or from unauthorized systems
  5. Audit for signs of unauthorized access or credential exposure
    Review device logs, authentication logs, and clinical system audit trails for unexpected clinician logins, configuration changes, or credential dumping attempts. Check if firmware images are accessible on shared network storage.
    Affected if Logs show unauthorized clinician-level access, or firmware files with embedded credentials are found in accessible locations

Your environment is affected if you operate ventilator devices with firmware confirmed by the vendor to contain hardcoded credentials, particularly if the devices are network-accessible beyond the clinical network segment.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Vendor should release firmware update removing hardcoded credentials and implementing proper credential storage (e.g., salted hashing). Until then, network segmentation and access controls should be enforced to limit exposure of the device.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation8.0 h
  • Implementation16.0 h
  • Testing12.0 h
  • Review / QA8.0 h
44.0 hours of engineering $7,720
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-48971 — 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-2024-48971 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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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