Dell Secure Connect Gateway Policy Manager: Missing brute-force protection

Summary

Dell Secure Connect Gateway (SCG) Policy Manager versions prior to 5.34.00.16 (per the CVE description) or prior to 5.36.00.16 (per Dell's advisory table and the CCB and CCCS advisories) lack adequate controls against excessive authentication attempts (CWE-307). According to the CVE record, an unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this to gain unauthorized access, bypass protection mechanisms and escalate privileges, with a CVSS 3.1 score of 9.8 as provided, although one aggregator lists 7.4. Exposure depends on whether the Policy Manager's HTTPS interface is reachable from untrusted networks.

Affected

• Dell Secure Connect Gateway (SCG) Policy Manager, versions prior to 5.34.00.16 (CVE description)
• Dell Policy Manager for Secure Connect Gateway - Appliance, versions prior to 5.36.00.16 (Dell DSA-2026-385 table, CCCS and CCB)
• Treat all versions below 5.36.00.16 as affected until verified on the Dell page.

Fixed in

• Upgrade to 5.36.00.16 or later (named in Dell's table and the CCB and CCCS advisories). Do not treat 5.34.00.16 as safe.
• Verify the exact wording of the table on the Dell advisory before rollout, as the sources conflict.

Workaround

• No workaround is documented for this CVE in the sources reviewed.
• Until patched, limit network access to the Policy Manager's HTTPS port (default 8443) to the management systems and gateways that need it. This is general hardening, not a vendor-documented mitigation.

Exploitation

• Exploited in the wild: no evidence found. Aggregator data lists it as not in KEV, which is unconfirmed.
• Public proof of concept: none found in the sources checked.
• CISA SSVC: exploitation none, automatable no, technical impact total.

Our recommendation

• Patch Dell SCG Policy Manager to 5.36.00.16 or later, and apply the whole DSA-2026-385 batch, not only this CVE.
• Confirm that the Policy Manager's admin interface is not reachable from the internet or less-trusted networks.
• Check for and change any default administrator credentials.
• Review authentication logs for brute-force or credential-stuffing activity.
• Confirm the CVSS score in NVD before using it in a report.

Public exploits iAttack code is publicly available (PoC on GitHub, Metasploit or Exploit-DB).

PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit and Exploit-DB list nothing for this CVE.

Research sources

• DSA-2026-385: Security Update for Dell Secure Connect Gateway Policy Manager www.dell.com
• CCB Belgium advisory on Dell SCG Policy Manager vulnerabilities ccb.belgium.be
• Canadian Centre for Cyber Security: Dell security advisory AV26-1027 www.cyber.gc.ca
• VulDB entry for CVE-2026-76779 vuldb.com
• Dell SCG Policy Manager configuration guide www.dell.com
• DSA-2026-382: Dell SCG Virtual Edition (separate product) www.dell.com
• CVE-2026-76779 aggregator record (threatint) cve.threatint.com
• Strix CVE-2026-76779 record www.strix.ai

Researched and written up in English and German by an AI (Claude by Anthropic) based on NVD, CISA, EPSS and the sources listed. The vendor information is authoritative. Researched on 30 Oct 2026, 20:07.