Description

Dell Secure Connect Gateway (SCG) Policy Manager, versions prior to 5.34.00.16, Versions prior to 5.36, contains an Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability. An unauthenticated attacker with adjacent network access could potentially exploit this vulnerability, leading to Information disclosure, Information tampering, and Protection mechanism bypass.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "6.4",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-29T12:17:11.290Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-29T12:17:11.290Z",
  "executiveSummary": "Dell Secure Connect Gateway (SCG) Policy Manager is affected by an Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability. This security flaw allows an unauthenticated attacker with adjacent network access to bypass established trust boundaries.\nThe vulnerability originates from the application's failure to properly verify the authenticity and integrity of certificates during communication exchanges. Successful exploitation grants an attacker the ability to intercept, view, or modify sensitive data traversing the network, facilitating information disclosure and unauthorized data tampering.\nFurthermore, this defect effectively nullifies security mechanisms intended to ensure secure channel establishment, exposing the gateway to man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks. The risk profile is significant, as it enables the compromise of secure communications without requiring prior authentication or administrative privileges. Affected products include Dell Secure Connect Gateway (SCG) Policy Manager versions prior to 5.34.00.16 and versions prior to 5.36. Organizations relying on SCG for infrastructure monitoring and management are at elevated risk of network-level interference if the underlying network segment is not strictly segmented or protected.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability resides within the certificate validation logic of the Dell Secure Connect Gateway (SCG) Policy Manager. The root cause is a failure to enforce strict validation criteria for SSL/TLS certificates presented during network handshake procedures. In environments where the application interacts with external or peer entities, the implementation does not adequately verify the trust chain, expiration status, or identity information contained within the presented certificates.\nThe attack flow requires the adversary to be positioned within an adjacent network segment to the affected SCG Policy Manager. Because the application fails to perform rigorous validation, an attacker can initiate an intercepted communication session by presenting a malicious or self-signed certificate that the system mistakenly trusts. This facilitates a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) scenario where the attacker proxies the connection between the legitimate gateway and its intended endpoint.\nOnce the MitM position is established, the attacker can leverage the lack of certificate integrity checks to decrypt, observe, and manipulate traffic. This results in the compromise of confidentiality and integrity, as the attacker effectively bypasses the protection mechanism that ensures the authenticity of the communications channel. Post-exploitation impact includes the potential exposure of sensitive telemetry data, management credentials, or system configuration information that the gateway transmits.\nAffected versions include any deployment of Dell Secure Connect Gateway (SCG) Policy Manager prior to 5.34.00.16 and all versions prior to 5.36. The vulnerability does not require authentication or elevated user privileges, making it highly accessible to any threat actor capable of network-level eavesdropping or packet injection within the local broadcast or adjacent network domain. By failing to validate the certificate chain, the vulnerable component essentially ignores the core security assertions of the TLS/SSL protocol, leaving the internal communications infrastructure susceptible to interception and arbitrary data injection."
}