CVE-2024-0860

Executive Summary

CVE-2024-0860 describes a cleartext transmission vulnerability affecting an unidentified vendor's product, in which sensitive data is transmitted in unencrypted form over the network. An attacker capable of network interception (man-in-the-middle position or passive packet capture on the same segment) can recover confidential information from captured traffic and craft their own authenticated requests to the target, potentially gaining unauthorized access or performing privileged actions.

The affected product is unknown, and no vendor, version range, patch, or public exploit has been confirmed. The CVSS base score of 8.0 indicates high severity, driven by network exploitability without authentication and high confidentiality and integrity impact. Given the absence of a known vendor, enterprise teams should treat any network appliance or embedded device transmitting administrative or credential data over unencrypted channels as potentially in scope.

Technical Analysis

The vulnerability class is CWE-319: Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information. The affected product sends sensitive data — likely session tokens, credentials, API keys, firmware update payloads, or administrative commands — over plaintext protocols such as HTTP, TFTP, SNMPv1/v2c, or unencrypted TCP/UDP ports. An attacker positioned on the network path can passively capture these packets using tools like Wireshark, tcpdump, or bettercap, and later replay or modify them.

The attack surface is the network interface of the affected device. Because the data is transmitted without TLS, SSH, or any cryptographic wrapper, there is no confidentiality protection during transit. The vulnerability also implies a lack of integrity protection: an attacker who can intercept a legitimate request can alter field values (e.g., change a firmware version field, substitute a command parameter, or replace a download URL) before forwarding it, causing the device to execute unintended operations. The full request-crafting capability described in the CVE record suggests the attacker can reconstruct valid protocol interactions from observed plaintext, enabling session hijacking or unauthorized configuration changes.

The root cause is almost certainly a design flaw in the vendor's communication stack: either the developer omitted encryption entirely, used a self-signed or weak certificate incorrectly, or relied on a legacy protocol that does not support encryption. In practice, this class of flaw is common in low-cost IoT devices, industrial controllers, and older network appliances where minimizing computational overhead or maintaining backward compatibility took precedence over security.

The absence of an EPSS score and lack of CISA KEV designation indicate this is not yet a widely exploited vulnerability. However, the 8.0 CVSS rating signals that exploitation is relatively straightforward for any attacker with network access.

Exploitation Scenarios

Stage 1 — Reconnaissance and Target Identification: An attacker begins by scanning the target network for devices exposing management interfaces or communicating over plaintext protocols. Using Nmap (nmap -sV -p 80,443,8080,161,69,22 target_net) or Shodan-style dorking, the attacker identifies hosts that respond on common administrative ports without TLS handshake indicators. Since the vulnerable product transmits cleartext, the attacker will prioritize targets that return HTTP banners, SNMP community strings, or TFTP server responses.

Stage 2 — Passive Interception: The attacker positions themselves on the same network segment as the target — via ARP spoofing (bettercap -eval "set arp.spoof.targets 192.168.1.50; arp.spoof on"), by compromising a switch port, or by using a rogue access point. They then run a packet capture tool (tcpdump -i eth0 -w capture.pcap -s 0) and wait for a legitimate administrator or automated service to interact with the target device. The attacker collects authentication tokens, session cookies, configuration data, or firmware images transmitted in cleartext.

Stage 3 — Request Crafting and Session Hijacking: From the captured packets, the attacker reconstructs the protocol state machine. Using a tool like Scapy or a custom Python script, the attacker extracts the session identifier, the exact byte sequences for authenticated commands, and any relevant nonce or timestamp fields. The attacker then crafts a new request that mirrors the observed legitimate traffic, substituting their desired parameters. For example, if the captured traffic shows an administrator changing a configuration setting via POST /config/update, the attacker changes the payload to enabled=false for an access control list or privilege=admin for a user account.

Stage 4 — Payload Execution: The crafted request is sent directly to the target's listening service. Because the device trusts the plaintext session token (no replay protection), it accepts the request as valid. If the protocol supports file downloads (e.g., TFTP), the attacker may also inject a malicious firmware image or script that the device fetches and executes with elevated privileges.

Post-Exploitation Impact: Depending on the target's role, the attacker can lock out legitimate administrators, exfiltrate data records, tamper with operational parameters, or pivot to other devices on the network using credentials recovered from the device's administrative traffic. If the device is a network gateway, the attacker could reroute traffic for further interception.

Impact Assessment

CVSS 8.0 (High): The vector implies network attack complexity (AC:L), no privileges required (PR:N), and no user interaction (UI:N). The confidentiality and integrity impact are both rated High — meaning the attacker can read all sensitive data transmitted by the device and can modify those transmissions to cause incorrect behavior. Availability impact is rated None, so the flaw does not directly enable denial-of-service.

Business Impact: For enterprises, the practical impact depends on where the vulnerable device sits. If it is an industrial controller (PLC, RTU), a medical device, or a building management system, the cleartext transmission of credentials or operational commands could enable sabotage, production downtime, or regulatory non-compliance. If it is an unmanaged network appliance (switches, firewalls, WAPs), the attacker may gain administrative control, facilitating lateral movement.

Blast Radius: Since the vulnerability is network-exploitable without authentication, the blast radius spans all segments reachable from the attacker's position. A successful compromise of a single device could expose credentials that unlock other systems, turning a one-off interception into a full network-wide breach.

Affected Systems: None confirmed by vendor advisories. However, given the vulnerability characteristics, products that are frequently implicated include older IP cameras, network-attached storage (NAS) devices, VoIP phones, industrial human-machine interfaces (HMIs), and serial-to-Ethernet converters — all of which often rely on plaintext HTTP or SNMP for management.

Detection Guidance

Sigma Rule

title: Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Data - CVE-2024-0860
id: 4f92c3f6-241a-4d7b-9e9a-6153b6a1a0c4
status: experimental
description: Detects plaintext HTTP or SNMP traffic carrying sensitive data patterns to/from network devices.
author: ValtersIT Threat Intelligence
date: 2024/02/10
logsource:
  category: network_connection
  product: windows
detection:
  selection_http:
    destination_port:
      - '80'
      - '8080'
      - '8000'
    protocol: tcp
    payload_contains:
      - 'password='
      - 'passwd='
      - 'session_id='
      - 'token='
      - 'Authorization: Basic'
  selection_snmp:
    destination_port: '161'
    protocol: udp
    payload_contains:
      - 'community'
      - 'public'
      - 'private'
  condition: selection_http or selection_snmp
falsepositives:
  - Legacy applications that legitimately use HTTP Basic Auth
  - SNMP monitoring tools with known community strings
level: medium
tags:
  - attack.t1190
  - cve.2024-0860

YARA Rule

rule CVE_2024_0860_Cleartext_Credential_Transmission
{
    meta:
        author = "ValtersIT Threat Intelligence"
        description = "Detects plaintext credential transmission patterns associated with CVE-2024-0860"
        cve = "CVE-2024-0860"
        date = "2024-02-10"
    strings:
        $a = "password=" ascii wide nocase
        $b = "passwd=" ascii wide nocase
        $c = "session_id=" ascii wide nocase
        $d = "Authorization: Basic" ascii wide nocase
        $e = "Set-Cookie: session" ascii wide nocase
        $f = "&pwd=" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        2 of them and filesize < 10MB
}

Suricata IDS Rule

alert tcp any any -> any 80,8080,8000 (msg:"CVE-2024-0860 Cleartext Credential Transmission Attempt"; flow:to_server,established; content:"password="; nocase; content:"|0d 0a|"; distance:0; within:512; classtype:attempted-admin; sid:20240860; rev:1; reference:cve,2024-0860;)

alert udp any any -> any 161 (msg:"CVE-2024-0860 SNMP Community String Exposure"; content:"|30 02 01 01 04|"; depth:6; content:"public"; nocase; offset:8; classtype:attempted-recon; sid:20240861; rev:1; reference:cve,2024-0860;)

Elastic Detection

sequence by destination.ip, destination.port
  [network where destination.port == 80 and event.action == "connection"]
  [network where destination.port == 80 and event.action == "data_transfer" and 
   network.bytes > 100 and process.name == "*"]

Alternative EQL for HTTP payload inspection:

network where destination.port in (80, 8080, 8000) and
  (network.protocol == "http" or network.protocol == "tcp") and
  (network.payload contains "password=" or
   network.payload contains "session_id=" or
   network.payload contains "Authorization: Basic")

Splunk SPL Query

index=network sourcetype=stream:http OR sourcetype=tcp
| where dest_port IN (80, 8080, 8000) OR (user_agent=* and dest_port=80)
| regex payload="(?i)(password=|passwd=|session_id=|Authorization: Basic)"
| stats count by src_ip, dest_ip, dest_port, scenario, _time
| sort - _time

For SNMP traffic:

index=network sourcetype=dns OR sourcetype=cisco:asa
| where dest_port=161 AND protocol=udp
| rex field=payload "(?i)(?P<community>public|private|community)"
| stats values(community) by src_ip, dest_ip

Wazuh OSSEC Rule

<group name="network_anomalies,">
  <rule id="100860" level="10">
    <if_sid>100000</if_sid>
    <match>password=|passwd=|session_id=|Authorization: Basic</match>
    <description>CVE-2024-0860: Cleartext credential transmission detected in network traffic</description>
    <group>cve-2024-0860,attack.t1190,</group>
    <mitre>
      <id>T1190</id>
    </mitre>
  </rule>
</group>

Mitigation & Patch Guidance

Patch Confidence Level: 2/4 — CLAIMED (single unverified source).

1. Immediate Mitigations (reduce exposure without a patch):

   • Network segmentation: Isolate any device suspected of being affected (unidentified vendor product transmitting plaintext) onto a dedicated management VLAN inaccessible from general user networks. Apply strict firewall rules restricting management traffic to specific admin source IPs.
   • Protocol replacement: Where possible, disable plaintext protocols (HTTP, SNMPv1/v2c, TFTP) and enable HTTPS, SNMPv3 with authentication and privacy, or SSH-based management.
   • VPN/tunnel enforcement: Force all administrative and machine-to-machine communication through an encrypted tunnel (IPsec, WireGuard, OpenVPN), even if the endpoint protocol is plaintext. This neutralizes passive interception.
   • Network monitoring: Deploy the detection rules above on perimeter and core switches to alert on cleartext credential traffic involving unknown devices.

2. Patch/Upgrade Steps:

   • Identify the vendor: Since CVE-2024-0860 does not name a vendor, audit your asset inventory for devices with no known CVE coverage, recently updated firmware, or management interfaces that only support plaintext. Contact the device manufacturer with the CVE ID and request an advisory.
   • Firmware upgrade: If the vendor confirms a patch, obtain and apply it in a maintenance window. Verify the firmware hash against the vendor's published checksum before deploying.
   • Temporary vendor workaround: If the vendor provides configuration guidance (e.g., enable a "secure mode" flag or change default ports), apply it even before the firmware upgrade.

3. Long-Term Hardening:

   • Procurement policy: Mandate that any new network device must support at least TLS 1.2 (or SSHv2) for management and data transmission — reject products that only offer cleartext interfaces.
   • Asset inventory enrichment: Standardize a process for tracking firmware versions, CVE coverage, and vendor security contact for all embedded devices. Integrate this with your vulnerability management platform.
   • Network baseline: Periodically capture and inspect traffic to identify any new cleartext transmissions of sensitive data. Automate this with a network traffic analysis tool (Zeek, Suricata, or commercial NDR).
   • Threat hunting: Run the provided Sigma/Splunk rules weekly to detect any attempted exploitation that may have already occurred, and investigate any alerts in the context of the January–February 2024 timeframe.

References

1. NVD Entry: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-0860 (official CVE record, CVSS score)
2. CWE-319 Reference: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/319.html (Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information)
3. MITRE ATT&CK T1190: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1190/ (Exploit Public-Facing Application)
4. FIRST EPSS (status check): https://www.first.org/epss/ (monitor for future score assignment)
5. CISA KEV Catalog: https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog (no entry as of report date — recheck periodically)

Known Exploitation in the Wild: No confirmed in-the-wild exploitation or threat actor campaign has been publicly documented for CVE-2024-0860 as of February 2024. Given the vulnerability's generic nature (plaintext transmission), it is plausible that low-sophistication attackers are already leveraging similar flaws in the same product class; however, no public evidence links this specific CVE to an active campaign.