CVE-2021-32086 | An issue was discovered in Quest KACE Systems Deployment App… | CVSS 9.8 CRITICAL

Description

An issue was discovered in Quest KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SMA) 11.0.273. It uses a hardcoded symmetric encryption key to encrypt secrets in the MySQL databases. (This key is not unique for each installation.) An attacker that gains access to the MySQL server or a backup files can decrypt the secrets. Often, the decrypted secrets can be used to escalate privileges within KACE, or gain privileged access to unrelated systems or services.

Metadata

CVE ID: CVE-2021-32086
State: PUBLISHED
Assigner: mitre
Reserved: 2021-05-06 00:00 UTC
Published: 2026-07-27 00:00 UTC
Last updated: 2026-07-28 14:54 UTC
Primary CWE: CWE-321
CWE-321 Use of Hard-coded Cryptographic Key
Vendor / Product: n/a / n/a
Sources: cve.org · NVD

Severity & Metrics

9.8 CRITICAL CVSS 3.1

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

SSVC — CISA Coordinator

Exploitation: none
Automatable: yes
Tech. Impact: total

Affected products (1)

Vendor	Product	Platform	Versions
n/a	n/a	—	n/a

Weakness (CWE)

CWE	Source	Description
—	cna	n/a
CWE-321	adp	CWE-321 Use of Hard-coded Cryptographic Key

CVSS scores (1)

Score	Severity	Version	Source	Vector
9.8	CRITICAL	3.1	adp	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References (2)