Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
Apereo Opencast could leak its system digest credentials when it tries to authenticate to arbitrary external services in some situations. For organizations running affected Opencast versions, this is mainly a credential exposure risk that could help an attacker access Opencast-related functionality protected by those credentials.
Executive priority
Treat as high priority for affected Opencast environments because it can expose system credentials without authentication. Prioritize inventory, upgrade planning, and credential rotation where exposure is plausible.
Technical view
CVE-2018-16153 affects Apereo Opencast 4.x through 10.x before 10.6. The reported flaw is CWE-522: insufficient protection of credentials. The CVSS 3.1 vector is network-accessible, low complexity, unauthenticated, no user interaction, with high confidentiality impact and no stated integrity or availability impact.
Likely exposure
Exposure is limited to organizations running Apereo Opencast 4.x through 10.x before 10.6, especially deployments that interact with external services where authentication attempts could occur.
Exploitation context
The source bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or active exploitation. The risk is credible because CVSS marks exploitation as network-accessible, unauthenticated, low complexity, and confidentiality-impacting.
Researcher notes
The bundle identifies affected ranges and the sensitive behavior but does not provide detailed exploit evidence. Focus validation on version status, credential handling changes around the referenced commit, and whether external service authentication paths exist in the deployment.
Mitigation direction
- Inventory Opencast deployments and identify versions below 10.6.
- Plan upgrade to Opencast 10.6 or later, confirming current vendor guidance.
- Review Apereo changelog and the referenced fix commit before rollout.
- Rotate system digest credentials if exposure is suspected.
- Limit unnecessary external service interactions until remediation is complete.
Validation and detection
- Confirm every Opencast instance reports version 10.6 or later.
- Review configuration for external services Opencast can contact.
- Check logs for unusual external authentication attempts.
- Verify system digest credentials were rotated after suspected exposure.
- Document residual risk where upgrade is delayed.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-522: Credential and account abuse lookup
Authentication and credential weaknesses can make valid-account abuse and credential telemetry useful review starting points. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2018-16153 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- High
- CVSS
- 7.5 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N3.93.6Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
7.5HighVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://www.apereo.org/projects/opencast/newsCVE reference
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-hcxx-mp6g-6gr9CVE reference
- https://github.com/opencast/opencast/commit/776d5588f39c61eb04c03bb955416c4f77629d51CVE reference
- https://docs.opencast.org/r/10.x/admin/#changelogCVE reference
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Insufficiently Protected Credentials
Insufficiently Protected Credentials represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.