Threats / DotNetNuke (DNN) / CVE-2018-15811
CVE-2018-15811
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-08-04
DotNetNuke (DNN) vulnerability
DotNetNuke uses weak encryption to protect input parameters, allowing attackers to potentially decrypt and manipulate sensitive data.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An inadequate encryption strength vulnerability in DotNetNuke's parameter protection mechanism enables attackers to compromise confidentiality and integrity of protected inputs through cryptanalysis or brute-force attacks.
CISA KEV Yes · 2021-11-034EPSS 0.74048 (verify live)5CVSS 7.5 (CISA)3CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Impact: partial3Exploit Weaponized · public exploit · Metasploit module · nuclei template8
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
1 independent public report of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.74048 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N) · Affected: DotNetNuke (DNN), DotNetNuke (DNN). Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-326 Inadequate Encryption Strength — weakness family: Cryptography.CWE assignment from the public NVD record (may be stale); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Technical Impact: partialCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 854 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
Public exploit available
Public exploit tooling is catalogued for this CVE (a functional/weaponized public exploit). Catalog entries: Metasploit module, nuclei template. We link the catalog page(s) only — no payload or code is hosted or restated here.Link, never host — the catalog page is the source; basicsecurity.net does not redistribute payloads.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I intercept encrypted input parameters transmitted by the application.
Business
Sensitive user data and application state become visible to network-level adversaries.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I apply cryptanalytic techniques or brute-force methods against the weak encryption algorithm to recover plaintext parameters.
Business
Authentication tokens, session identifiers, or configuration data may be exposed, enabling account takeover or privilege escalation.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I modify decrypted parameters and re-encrypt them using the weak algorithm to inject malicious values.
Business
Application logic can be manipulated to bypass security controls, alter user permissions, or trigger unintended functionality.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05