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CVE-2018-16261

23
FAUCET Score

CVE-2018-16261 describes a privilege escalation vulnerability within Pulse Secure Pulse Desktop Client versions 5.3RX before 5.3R5 and 9.0R1, specifically related to Dynamic Certificate Trust. With a CVSS score of 6.8 (Medium), this vulnerability has a physical attack vector and low attack complexity, allowing for high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Despite its potential impact, there is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), or significant community discussion or media coverage.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
5.3r1CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:pulsesecure:pulse_secure_desktop_client:5.3r1:*:*:*:*:windows:*:*
5.3r1.1CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:pulsesecure:pulse_secure_desktop_client:5.3r1.1:*:*:*:*:windows:*:*
5.3r2CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:pulsesecure:pulse_secure_desktop_client:5.3r2:*:*:*:*:windows:*:*
5.3r3CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:pulsesecure:pulse_secure_desktop_client:5.3r3:*:*:*:*:windows:*:*
5.3r4CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:pulsesecure:pulse_secure_desktop_client:5.3r4:*:*:*:*:windows:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.0

6.8MEDIUM

CVSS:3.0/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack Vector
PHYSICAL
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
0.9
Impact Score
5.9
CvssVersion
3.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
0.20%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
10.4%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-28
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0020 is in the 19th percentile among its peer group of 1,532 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.1 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.2 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Remediation records are not available for this CVE.

References

kb.pulsesecure.net / articles/Pulse_Security_Advisories/SA43877
Vendor Advisory