Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:NSummary
CVE-2024-28200 is a critical-severity Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel (CWE-288) vulnerability in N-Able N-Central. Its CVSS base score is 9.1 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique External Remote Services (T1133); ranked in the top 22% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-25 (Reference Monitor) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement) — 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.
The vulnerability CVE-2024-28200 is an authentication bypass in the user interface of the N-central server, present in all deployments prior to version 2024.2. It is tracked under CWEs 288 and 287 and carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 9.1 reflecting network-accessible attack conditions with no required credentials or user interaction.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit the flaw to bypass authentication controls on the N-central user interface, resulting in high impact to confidentiality and integrity while availability remains unaffected.
N-able's security advisory and the 2024.2 release notes direct customers to upgrade to N-central 2024.2 for remediation; the issue was identified through internal source-code review.
No exploitation in the wild has been observed by the vendor. The associated EPSS score reached a peak of 0.5606 before receding to its current value of 0.4995.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2024-25319
Vulnerability Data
The N-central server is vulnerable to an authentication bypass of the user interface. This vulnerability is present in all deployments of N-central prior to 2024.2. This vulnerability was discovered through internal N-central source code review and N-able has not observed…
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any exploitation in the wild.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 15 hardening rules · 6 OS baselines
V6.4.4V6.5.4V6.5.5V6.5.7
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Requires a tamperproof, always-invoked reference monitor that structurally blocks bypass via any alternate path.
Enforces authorization checks on every logical access path, eliminating unauthenticated alternate channels.
Mandates unique identification and authentication of organizational users before access, directly stopping improper authentication.
Requires unique identification and authentication of devices before establishing connections, preventing unauthenticated device claims.
Mandates unique identification and authentication of non-organizational users, directly addressing the weakness for external actors.
Manages authenticators with verification and secure distribution, reducing opportunities for improper authentication.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Requiring authentication on every channel and path directly eliminates alternate-path bypasses.
PR.AA-04 directly enables verification of identity assertions (mostly preventing CWE-287 in that scope) yet leaves many other authentication failure modes unaddressed (only partial prevention overall).
Enforcing authorizations and least privilege across all access vectors prevents unauthenticated alternate paths.
Protecting networks and environments from unauthorized logical access blocks bypass via undocumented channels.
PR.AA-01 supplies and governs credentials/tokens that authentication relies on, removing some weak-credential cases, yet leaves verification logic, missing checks, and protocol flaws untouched.
PR.AA-02 ensures valid enrollment and unique credential binding, which reduces some improper-auth risks at issuance time but leaves runtime claim verification untouched, so each direction only partially addresses the other.
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.
Requiring authentication methods whose strength matches the sensitivity of the data and mandating multi-factor authentication directly blocks attempts to access resources without proving identity.
Verifying user identity before issuing replacement credentials and forcing changes after compromise reduces the likelihood that authentication bypass can be achieved through stolen or weak credentials.
Security testing can detect alternate-path bypasses but does not prevent them in production.
Access control policy directly addresses alternate authentication paths by requiring all channels to enforce authentication.
Mandating segregated approval and oversight for non-human identities reduces the chance that weak or orphaned credentials can be exploited for unauthorized authentication.
Access rights provisioning and review prevent bypass via unmonitored or alternate channels.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Oracle Linux 8 (2 rules)
- V-248598 There must be no ".shosts" files on the OL 8 operating system. prevents CWE-288
- V-248827 OL 8 must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-287, CWE-288
Oracle Linux 9 (2 rules)
- V-271757 OL 9 file systems must not contain shosts.equiv files. prevents CWE-288
- V-271758 OL 9 file systems must not contain .shosts files. prevents CWE-288
RHEL 7 (4 rules)
- V-204425 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that the SSH daemon does not allow authentication using an empty password. prevents CWE-287
- V-204440 Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems version 7.2 or newer using Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes. prevents CWE-288
- V-204442 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-287, CWE-288
RHEL 8 (1 rule)
- V-230492 RHEL 8 must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-287
Ubuntu 22.04 (1 rule)
- V-260470 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, when booted, must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes. prevents CWE-287
Ubuntu 24.04 (2 rules)
- V-270675 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS when booted must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes. prevents CWE-287
- V-270714 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS must not allow accounts configured in Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) with blank or null passwords. prevents CWE-287