CVE-2021-32086

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
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: 2026-07-27 · updated 2026-08-03
Weakness: CWE-321

Description

An issue was discovered in Quest KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SMA) 11.0.273. It uses a hardcoded symmetric encryption key to encrypt secrets in the MySQL databases. (This key is not unique for each installation.) An attacker that gains access to the MySQL server or a backup files can decrypt the secrets. Often, the decrypted secrets can be used to escalate privileges within KACE, or gain privileged access to unrelated systems or services.

Affected products

Quest KACE: 11.0.273

References

https://support.quest.com/download-product-select
https://support.quest.com/kace-systems-management-appliance/kb/4293505/quest-response-to-criticalstart-vulnerability-report

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