CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2017-5243 — Rapid7 Nexpose security vulnerability

High CVSS 8.5

The default SSH configuration in Rapid7 Nexpose hardware appliances shipped before June 2017 does not specify desired algorithms for key exchange and other important functions. As a result, it falls back to allowing ALL algorithms supported by the relevant version of OpenSSH and makes the installations vulnerable to a range of MITM, downgrade, and decryption attacks.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.5 (3.0)
Published
2017-06-06
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-327

Affected products

  • rapid7 / nexpose

Matched remediation archetype

Cryptography, certificate, signature, and channel validation

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Inventory affected algorithms, key uses, trust stores, certificate validation settings, random sources, and plaintext channels across clients and services.
  • Determine which secrets, identities, signatures, or data protections depend on the affected primitive or validation path.
  • Check debug, compatibility, fallback, and hostname or audience override settings in build and runtime configuration.

Remediate safely

  • Use a maintained platform cryptographic API with approved algorithms, modes, parameters, randomness, and full peer identity validation.
  • Remove insecure fallback and validation bypasses; separate keys by purpose and load them from managed secret storage.
  • Plan rotation or reissuance for affected keys, certificates, tokens, hashes, or ciphertext and document compatibility sequencing.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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