CVE-2015-7269

Severity: medium (CVSS 4.2 v3.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2017-11-27 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-254

Description

Seagate ST500LT015 hard disk drives, when operating in eDrive mode on Lenovo ThinkPad W541 laptops with BIOS 2.21, allow physically proximate attackers to bypass self-encrypting drive (SED) protection by attaching a second SATA connector to exposed pins, maintaining an alternate power source, and attaching the data cable to another machine, aka a "Hot Unplug Attack."

Affected products

Seagate St500Lt015 Firmware: all versions

References

https://www.blackhat.com/docs/eu-15/materials/eu-15-Boteanu-Bypassing-Self-Encrypting-Drives-SED-In-Enterprise-Environments-wp.pdf
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3004913/encryption/self-encrypting-drives-are-hardly-any-better-than-software-based-encryption.html
https://www.blackhat.com/docs/eu-15/materials/eu-15-Boteanu-Bypassing-Self-Encrypting-Drives-SED-In-Enterprise-Environments-wp.pdf
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3004913/encryption/self-encrypting-drives-are-hardly-any-better-than-software-based-encryption.html

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