| Attack vector | Network | AV | The vulnerable system is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed “remotely exploitable” and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers). An example of a network attack is an attacker causing a denial of service by sending a specially crafted TCP packet across a wide area network (e.g., CVE-2004-0230). |
| Attack Complexity | High | AC | The successful attack depends on the evasion or circumvention of security-enhancing techniques in place that would otherwise hinder the attack. These include: Evasion of exploit mitigation techniques. The attacker must have additional methods available to bypass security measures in place. For example, circumvention of address space randomization (ASLR) or data execution prevention must be performed for the attack to be successful. Obtaining target-specific secrets. The attacker must gather some target-specific secret before the attack can be successful. A secret is any piece of information that cannot be obtained through any amount of reconnaissance. To obtain the secret the attacker must perform additional attacks or break otherwise secure measures (e.g. knowledge of a secret key may be needed to break a crypto channel). This operation must be performed for each attacked target. |
| Privileges Required | High | PR | The attacker requires privileges that provide significant (e.g., administrative) control over the vulnerable system allowing full access to the vulnerable system’s settings and files. |
| Scope | Unchanged | S | An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In the case of a vulnerability in a virtualized environment, an exploited vulnerability in one guest instance would not affect neighboring guest instances. |
| Confidentiality | High | C | There is total information disclosure, resulting in all data on the system being revealed to the attacker, or there is a possibility of the attacker gaining control over confidential data. |
| Integrity | High | I | There is a total compromise of system integrity. There is a complete loss of system protection, resulting in the attacker being able to modify any file on the target system. |
| Availability | High | A | There is a total shutdown of the affected resource. The attacker can deny access to the system or data, potentially causing significant loss to the organization. |