Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
Affected DJI drones can have storage deliberately filled through an internal FTP service using shared credentials. This may stop flight records, logs, and telemetry from being saved and may block later firmware updates. Malicious files can survive reboot and factory reset, increasing operational and investigative impact.
Executive priority
Treat affected operational fleets as an immediate maintenance priority because exploitation can undermine flight evidence, telemetry retention, and future updating. Prioritize drones below the stated firmware thresholds, especially those exposed to shared networks, service systems, or untrusted USB connections. Investigate symptoms before returning affected aircraft to routine use.
Technical view
The FTP service permits authenticated users with shared hardcoded credentials to upload unlimited files and overwrite content under /blackbox/upgrade/. Access requires reachability through the drone’s internal network or USB RNDIS interface. Storage exhaustion can disrupt logging, telemetry retention, and firmware updates. Vendor firmware is required for remediation.
Likely exposure
Exposure concerns the listed Neo, Flip, Air, Avata, Mavic, and Mini models matching the source bundle’s model-specific firmware thresholds. An attacker still needs access to the drone’s internal network or USB RNDIS interface. Fleet, repair, and maintenance environments may therefore warrant particular review.
Exploitation context
The bundle reports CVSS 9.3 critical severity but does not provide evidence of exploitation in the wild, and the CVE is not identified as KEV. Exploitation requires connectivity to an affected drone interface; shared hardcoded credentials then enable unrestricted storage consumption without ordinary per-device credential protection.
Researcher notes
The reported weakness maps to CWE-798 and combines shared hardcoded credentials with unrestricted persistent writes. The supplied evidence identifies impact and firmware remediation but provides no confirmed attack campaigns, public exploit status, or forensic indicators. The structured affected-version entries are incomplete, so validation should follow the narrative model thresholds and current DJI guidance.
Mitigation direction
- Install the vendor firmware update applicable to each affected DJI model.
- Restrict untrusted access to drone internal networks and USB RNDIS interfaces until updated.
- Do not rely on reboot or factory reset to remove uploaded files.
- Escalate drones showing storage exhaustion, missing records, or failed updates for controlled maintenance.
Validation and detection
- Inventory DJI drone models and installed firmware versions.
- Compare each firmware version with the source bundle’s model-specific affected threshold.
- Confirm the applicable update and installation guidance through DJI support.
- Check affected drones for abnormal storage depletion, missing flight records, or firmware update failures.
- After updating, verify normal logging, telemetry retention, available storage, and firmware update behavior.
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-798: 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-2026-78251 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
- Critical
- CVSS
- 9.3 (4.0)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:L/SI:L/SA:L
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.
SSVC decision data
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:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:L/SI:L/SA:L——CIRCLVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 4.0 score
9.3CriticalVector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:L/SI:L/SA:L
Vulnerability timeline
Timeline events are normalized from CVE metadata, CNA source timelines, ADP timelines, and KEV metadata when present.
- CVE reservedCVE Program
The CVE ID was reserved by the assigning CNA.
- CVE publishedCVE Program
The CVE record was published.
- CVE updatedCVE Program
The CVE record metadata indicates this as the latest update time.
ADP provider summaries
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://support.dji.com/help/content?customId=en-us03400011149&spaceId=34&re=US&lang=enCVE reference, CIRCL · product
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.
Use of Hard-coded Credentials
Use of Hard-coded Credentials represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.