CVE-2018-16158
Eaton Power Xpert Meter 4000, 6000, and 8000 devices before 13.4.0.10 have a single SSH private key across different customers'…
- 9.8CriticalCVSS base score
- 30.3%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 1.8% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- 1Public exploitsMetasploit, Nuclei and Exploit-DB
Description
Eaton Power Xpert Meter 4000, 6000, and 8000 devices before 13.4.0.10 have a single SSH private key across different customers' installations and do not properly restrict access to this key, which makes it easier for remote attackers to perform SSH logins (to uid 0) via the PubkeyAuthentication option.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. The public collections list a Metasploit module for it.
Show the exploits1
Metasploit modules1 module
- Eaton Xpert Meter SSH Private Key Exposure Scanner (Metasploit module) (opens in a new tab)
auxiliary/scanner/ssh/eaton_xpert_backdoorRank normaldisclosed 18 Jul 2018
Modules, templates and exploits as listed by the Metasploit Framework (BSD-3-Clause), ProjectDiscovery's Nuclei templates (MIT) and the Exploit Database (GPLv2), read once a day. Where the data comes from
Timeline
ID reserved
By mitre
Published
- 6 years later
· 6 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.0 | Critical9.8 | CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 30.3% · top 1.8% of all CVEs (10 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Critical 9.8.
Affected products
n/a
- affected n/a
References
2
- https://www.ctrlu.net/vuln/0006.html (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- http://www.eaton.com/content/dam/eaton/company/news-insights/cybersecurity/security-bulletins/PXM-Advisory.pdf (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2018-8012 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2018-16158)Record last updated .