CVE-2017-5242 — Nexpose and InsightVM virtual appliances downloaded between April 5th, 2017 and

Nexpose and InsightVM virtual appliances downloaded between April 5th, 2017 and May 3rd, 2017 contain identical SSH host keys. Normally, a unique SSH host key should be generated the first time a virtual appliance boots.

01What is this vulnerability?

Nexpose and InsightVM virtual appliances downloaded between April 5th, 2017 and May 3rd, 2017 contain identical SSH host keys. Normally, a unique SSH host key should be generated the first time a virtual appliance boots.

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
Rapid7	Nexpose Virtual Appliance	2017.04.05, 2017.05.03
Rapid7	InsightVM Virtual Appliance	2017.04.05, 2017.05.03

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2023-01-12T00:00:00.000Z
• Last modified: 2025-04-08T14:20:43.692Z

09References

• www.rapid7.com — https://www.rapid7.com/blog/post/2017/05/17/rapid7-nexpose-virtual-appliance-dup…