What is CVE-2016-9259?

CVE-2016-9259 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Tenable Nessus, classified under Cross-site Scripting. CVSS score: 5.4/10. Published 2017-02-28.

How severe is CVE-2016-9259?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.4 out of 10.

Is CVE-2016-9259 known to be exploited?

1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

XSS in Tenable Nessus

CVE-2016-9259

Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Tenable Nessus before 6.9.1 allows remote authenticated users to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via unspecified vectors.

Vulnerability class: XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)

Published 2017-02-28 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.4 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.009 (57.3th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 57th percentile — 57.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.009 · newest: 0.009 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Tenable Nessus — versions 6.8, 6.8.1, 6.8.2

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-79 — Cross-site Scripting

Public proof-of-concept exploits

s3curityb3ast/s3curityb3ast.github.io

References

www.tenable.com/security/tns-2016-17 (Patch, Vendor Advisory)
www.securitytracker.com/id/1037293 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2016-9259?: CVE-2016-9259 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Tenable Nessus, classified under Cross-site Scripting. CVSS score: 5.4/10. Published 2017-02-28.
How severe is CVE-2016-9259?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.4 out of 10.
Is CVE-2016-9259 known to be exploited?: 1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.