Skip to content
Fencer Intel
medium 5.1

CVE-2008-6540 json

DotNetNuke Default Machine Key Exposure

published 17y ago modified 4mo ago also GHSA-grw3-hjjm-5cjm , EUVD-2022-4007

cvss
5.1
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.5%
EPSS 2.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 84%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

DotNetNuke before 4.8.2, during installation or upgrade, does not warn the administrator when the default (1) ValidationKey and (2) DecryptionKey values cannot be modified in the web.config file, which allows remote attackers to bypass intended access restrictions by using the default keys.

Patch / fix

  • nuget DotNetNuke.Core 4.8.2

Is CVE-2008-6540 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (EDB-31465)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

2.48% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 84% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-14).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-31465 DotNetNuke 4.8.1 - Default 'ValidationKey' and 'DecriptionKey' Weak Encryption remote, 2008-03-21
  • securityfocus.com http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/28391 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 5.1 AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
nuget DotNetNuke.Core
<4.8.2
4.8.2

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls
  • CWE-453 Insecure Default Variable Initialization

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.