CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2018-16791 — Solarwinds Sftp/Scp Server security vulnerability

Critical CVSS 9.8

In SolarWinds SFTP/SCP Server through 2018-09-10, the configuration file is world readable and writable, and stores user passwords in an insecure manner, allowing an attacker to determine passwords for potentially privileged accounts. This also grants the attacker an ability to backdoor the server.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.0)
Published
2018-12-05
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-522

Affected products

  • solarwinds / sftp/scp_server

Matched remediation archetype

Information disclosure and sensitive data exposure

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

Check exposure

  • Trace sensitive data through responses, errors, logs, metrics, traces, caches, exports, files, backups, and client bundles.
  • Identify affected subjects, tenants, retention windows, access controls, and downstream copies without opening unnecessary sensitive records.
  • Review metadata, timing, status, length, and existence signals as well as direct content disclosure.

Remediate safely

  • Minimize collection and output, apply field-level authorization and redaction at a centralized boundary, and return generic external errors.
  • Remove secrets and sensitive data from logs, artifacts, URLs, caches, and client-side bundles; rotate credentials that may have been exposed.
  • Update the affected component and add synthetic-data tests for response, error, observability, and export paths.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.