CVE-2017-6543

Tenable Nessus before 6.10.2 (as used alone or in Tenable Appliance before 4.5.0) was found to contain a flaw that allowed a remote, authenticated attacker to upload a crafted file that could be written to anywhere on the system. This could be used to subsequently gain elevated privileges on the system (e.g., after a reboot). This issue only affects installations on Windows.

Published: 2017-03-08 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2017-6543 is rated Moderate Risk (48.3/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.84%). Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2017-6543

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.27% 0.84% +0.57%
2 2025-03-30 0.19% 0.27% +0.08%
3 2025-03-29 0.19%

Full EPSS history (8 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2017-6543

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.3 3.0 HIGH
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.3 5.9 [email protected]
6.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:S)
A single authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
6.8 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2017-6543

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2017-6543

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
tenable nessus <= 6.10.1 cpe:2.3:a:tenable:nessus:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
tenable appliance 4.4.0 cpe:2.3:a:tenable:appliance:4.4.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2017-6543

cvelogic Threat Intelligence