Insufficiently Protected Credentials: An authenticated user with debug privileges can retrieve stored Nessus policy credentials from the “n…

published 2022-10-17 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2022-32743

cvss: 6.5; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.8%; EPSS 0.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 56%
public exploits: 0; none known

Insufficiently Protected Credentials: An authenticated user with debug privileges can retrieve stored Nessus policy credentials from the “nessusd” process in cleartext via process dumping. The affected products are all versions of Nessus Essentials and Professional. The vulnerability allows an attacker to access credentials stored in Nessus scanners, potentially compromising its customers’ network of assets.

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 17 mo ago (2025-05-13)

Exploit prediction

0.79% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 56% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

cybersecurityworks.com https://cybersecurityworks.com/blog/zero-days/csw-expert-discovers-a-zero-day-vulnerability-in-tenables-nessus-scanner.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CISA ADP	3.1	6.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD	3.1	6.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CNA	3.1	6.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected products

n/a Nessus Professional

Classification

Weakness

CWE-522 Insufficiently Protected Credentials

References

cybersecurityworks.com /blog/zero-days/csw-expert-discovers-a-zero-day-vulnerability-in-tenables-nessus-scanner.html
exploit, third-party-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2022-28291
NVD CVE-2022-28291

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary