| 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 | None | PR | The attacker is unauthenticated prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack. |
| User Interaction | None | UI | The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker. Examples include: a remote attacker is able to send packets to a target system a locally authenticated attacker executes code to elevate privileges |
| 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 | Low | C | There is some impact on confidentiality, but the attacker either does not gain control of any data, or the information obtained does not have a significant impact on the system or its operations. |
| Integrity | Low | I | Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over what can be modified, or the extent of what the attacker can affect is limited. The data modified does not have a direct, serious impact on the system. |
| Availability | Low | A | There is reduced performance or interruptions in resource availability. However, the attacker does not have the ability to completely prevent access to the resources or services; the impact is limited. |