Security Resilience

CVE-2023-53740

Access Control in Dbbroadcast Sft Dab 015\/C Firmware 1.9.3

Public PoCAccess Control
Published
10 December 2025
Modified
17 December 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 8.6
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:A/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0088 58th percentile
Risk Priority 55 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-53740 is a high-severity Missing Authorization (CWE-862) vulnerability in Dbbroadcast Sft Dab 015\/C Firmware. Its CVSS base score is 8.6 (High).

Operationally, ranked in the top 42% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-24 (Access Control Decisions) and AC-25 (Reference Monitor) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary

Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.

CVE-2023-53740 is an authentication bypass vulnerability (CWE-862) in Screen SFT DAB version 1.9.3. The flaw resides in the userManager.cgx endpoint, which allows attackers to change the admin password without supplying current credentials by sending a crafted JSON request containing a new MD5-hashed password, thereby directly modifying the admin account.

Remote, unauthenticated attackers can exploit this vulnerability over the network with low attack complexity and no user interaction required, as reflected in its critical CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H). Successful exploitation enables full compromise of the admin account, potentially leading to high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the affected system.

Advisories such as the VulnCheck report detail the authentication bypass mechanism, while a proof-of-concept exploit is publicly available on Exploit-DB (ID 51458). Vendor resources from DB Broadcast and Screen provide context on the SFT DAB series compact air product, and practitioners should review these references for any available patches or mitigation steps.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Screen SFT DAB 1.9.3 contains an authentication bypass vulnerability that allows attackers to change the admin password without providing the current credentials. Attackers can exploit the userManager.cgx endpoint by sending a crafted JSON request with a new MD5-hashed password to…

more

directly modify the admin account.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-32081Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-24633Shared CWE-862
CVE-2024-38721Shared CWE-862
CVE-2023-21133Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-53291Shared CWE-862
CVE-2024-56066Shared CWE-862
CVE-2023-1337Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-23190Shared CWE-862
CVE-2023-46195Shared CWE-862
CVE-2023-32593Shared CWE-862

Affected Assets

dbbroadcast
sft dab 015\/c firmware
1.9.3
dbbroadcast
sft dab 050\/c firmware
1.9.3
dbbroadcast
sft dab 150\/c firmware
1.9.3
dbbroadcast
sft dab 300\/c firmware
1.9.3
dbbroadcast
sft dab 600\/c firmware
1.9.3

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

AC-3 directly requires enforcement of authorization decisions on every access request, structurally eliminating missing authorization checks.

AC-24 mandates that access control decisions are applied to each request, preventing bypass of authorization logic.

AC-25 requires a tamperproof, always-invoked reference monitor that ensures authorization checks cannot be omitted.

AC-6 reduces the set of actions reachable without proper authorization, limiting blast radius of missing checks.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

blocks

Requiring formal authorization of every access request before rights are granted ensures that checks for required permissions are performed, preventing missing authorization checks from being introduced.

blocks

A.5.18's provisioning, review, revocation and activation steps (incl. owner approval, SoD, timely removal on role/termination change) directly stop exploitation of missing authorization checks by ensuring no actor receives or retains rights to resources they should not access; the bounded remainder is that it cannot stop missing-authorization defects inside the enforcement mechanism itself once rights have been granted (e.g. flawed code that ignores the rights table).

finds

By requiring competent outsiders to verify that every function enforces the need-to-know principle, the control lowers the likelihood that missing authorization checks persist undetected.

blocks

A.5.8 integrates risk assessment, requirements elicitation and governance into the project lifecycle so that authorization needs can be identified and specified; it does not itself perform or enforce authorization checks, so the missing-authorization weakness can still be present and exploitable.

blocks

Security checkpoints and explicit authorization requirements in the design phase ensure that every sensitive function is paired with an access-control check, reducing missing-authorization defects.

blocks

A.8.27 mandates security-by-design principles (least privilege, default deny, security architecture integration, zero-trust never-trust/always-verify, dynamic access control) plus design reviews that directly specify and enforce authorization checks before access; this stops most missing-authorization cases from being exploitable, with a bounded remainder in non-architectural or legacy components where the principles were documented but not fully applied.

Hardening callouts derived

DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-862, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.

References