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CVE-2017-6404 Veritas CVE debrief

CVE-2017-6404 is a log-integrity issue in Veritas NetBackup and NetBackup Appliance. According to NVD and the vendor advisory reference, affected installations used world-writable log files, which can let a local user destroy or spoof log data. The issue is rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5) and maps to improper file permissions (CWE-276).

Vendor
Veritas
Product
Unknown
CVSS
MEDIUM 5.5
CISA KEV
Not listed in stored evidence
Original CVE published
2017-03-02
Original CVE updated
2026-05-13
Advisory published
2017-03-02
Advisory updated
2026-05-13

Who should care

Veritas NetBackup and NetBackup Appliance administrators, security teams responsible for server hardening, and anyone relying on these logs for auditing, incident response, or compliance.

Technical summary

NVD lists the vulnerability as affecting Veritas NetBackup up to 7.6.1.2 and NetBackup Appliance up to 2.6.1.2. The weakness is that log files were world-writable, so a local attacker with limited privileges could modify or destroy log content, undermining auditability and trust in records. The NVD CVSS vector (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N) indicates a local, low-privilege integrity impact without confidentiality or availability impact.

Defensive priority

Medium. This is not a remote code execution issue, but it can undermine incident response and audit evidence. Prioritize if these systems are used for compliance logging or security monitoring.

Recommended defensive actions

  • Upgrade affected Veritas NetBackup and NetBackup Appliance installations to vendor-fixed versions.
  • Review permissions on NetBackup log files and directories to ensure they are not world-writable.
  • Restrict local shell and service access to trusted administrators only.
  • Monitor for unexpected log truncation, deletion, or tampering indicators.
  • Validate log integrity where possible by using centralized or append-only logging controls.

Evidence notes

The corpus identifies the issue as a world-writable log file problem in Veritas NetBackup / NetBackup Appliance, cites CWE-276, and provides the NVD CVSS 3.0 vector AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N. The NVD CPE criteria in the supplied source mark NetBackup through 7.6.1.2 and NetBackup Appliance through 2.6.1.2 as vulnerable. The vendor advisory reference is VTS17-003 Issue9.

Sources and references

Verified primary and authoritative sources

  • CVE-2017-6404 CVE Program record

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-6404

    CVE Program - Official CVE Program record with source-provided CVE metadata.

  • CVE-2017-6404 NVD vulnerability detail

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-6404

    NIST National Vulnerability Database - Official NIST NVD detail page and source-specific vulnerability assessment.

Supplemental references

Methodology and review provenance

AI-assisted synthesis based on stored public vulnerability evidence. System validation, approval state, and publication status do not by themselves establish human review of this revision. PatchSiren helps prioritize defensive review and does not prove exposure or remediation on any system.