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CVE-2008-6540

23
FAUCET Score

CVE-2008-6540 describes a vulnerability in DotNetNuke versions prior to 4.8.2. During installation or upgrade, the system fails to alert administrators when the default ValidationKey and DecryptionKey values in the web.config file remain unchanged. This oversight allows remote attackers to bypass access restrictions by leveraging these known default keys. The vulnerability has a CVSS score of 5.1, indicating a medium severity. It can be exploited remotely with high attack complexity and requires no authentication, potentially leading to partial compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. While there is no evidence of active exploitation or Metasploit/Nuclei modules, an ExploitDB entry (EDB-31465) exists, detailing the weak encryption. There is minimal community discussion or media coverage surrounding this CVE, suggesting it has not garnered significant attention.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
<= 4.8.1CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:dnnsoftware:dotnetnuke:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
1.0.6CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:dnnsoftware:dotnetnuke:1.0.6:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
1.0.7CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:dnnsoftware:dotnetnuke:1.0.7:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
1.0.8CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:dnnsoftware:dotnetnuke:1.0.8:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
1.0.9CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:dnnsoftware:dotnetnuke:1.0.9:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 2.0

5.1MEDIUM

AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Confidentiality Impact
PARTIAL
Integrity Impact
PARTIAL
Availability Impact
PARTIAL
Access Vector
NETWORK
Access Complexity
HIGH
Authentication
NONE
Exploitability Score
4.9
Impact Score
6.4
CvssVersion
2.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
2.50%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
83.0%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-27
Model: v2026.06.15
ExploitDB: EDB-31465 · Mar 21, 2008
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0249 is in the 73rd percentile among its peer group of 19,955 CVEs.

Social Chatter

No social media mentions found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.0 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.2 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (1)

nugetpatch availablevia ghsa
Product: DotNetNuke.CoreFixed in: 4.8.2

Vendor Advisories (1)

nugetGHSA-grw3-hjjm-5cjmmedium

DotNetNuke Default Machine Key Exposure

May 14, 2022

References

osvdb.org / 43720
secunia.com / advisories/29488
Vendor Advisory
exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com / vulnerabilities/41399
dotnetnuke.com / News/SecurityBulletins/SecurityBulletinno12/tabid/1148/Default.aspx
Vendor Advisory
securityfocus.com / archive/1/489957/100/0/threaded
securityfocus.com / bid/28391
Exploit