External risk intelligence

Dell Secure Connect Gateway Policy Manager Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts

CVE advisorySeverity: CRITICAL (CVSS 9.8)

CVE-2026-76779

Dell Secure Connect Gateway is an enterprise connectivity and management appliance designed to act as a gateway for monitoring and support. Such appliances are commonly deployed at the network edge or in environments where they must maintain external connectivity to vendor services, making them a frequently reachable service.

Dell Policy Manager For Secure Connect Gateway

before 5.36.00.16

Halo Surface Signal: 4 out of 5 — likely to be public-facing.

External exposure likelihood

Horizon Alert

Summary of the vulnerability and why it matters

A vulnerability in Dell's Secure Connect Gateway Policy Manager could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to gain elevated privileges and bypass security controls. This issue affects how the system handles authentication attempts, potentially leading to unauthorized access. The main concern is confirming relevance and exposure within your environment.

System authentication is improperly restricted.
Allows unauthorized access and privilege escalation.
Confirm if this gateway is in your environment.

Attack Path

How an attacker could exploit the issue

An unauthenticated attacker with network access could exploit this vulnerability by repeatedly attempting to authenticate to Dell Secure Connect Gateway's Policy Manager. Successfully overwhelming the authentication mechanism could allow the attacker to gain elevated privileges, bypass security measures, or access the system without authorization.

No authentication required for access.
Overwhelming authentication attempts trigger vulnerability.
Unauthorized access and privilege escalation risk.

Live Threat

Current exploitation, exposure, and threat context

An unauthenticated attacker with remote access could exploit this vulnerability to gain unauthorized access and elevate privileges within the Dell Secure Connect Gateway Policy Manager. This could allow them to bypass protection mechanisms and potentially access or modify policy data that governs how managed Dell infrastructure communicates with Dell support services.

System policy data at risk.
Exposure through network-based attacks.
Unauthorized access to system configurations.

Operational Fix

Recommended remediation, mitigation, and detection steps

System owners and infrastructure teams are likely responsible for addressing this critical vulnerability in Dell Secure Connect Gateway Policy Manager, as it's a network-facing appliance. The first step is to identify all instances of the affected technology, confirm their accessibility and business criticality, and assign an owner to coordinate remediation efforts.

Ownership: Infrastructure and system owners.
Verify: Network exposure and business criticality.
Action: Plan and coordinate vendor engagement.

Supplementary metadata

CVSS vector

Validate whether this threat affects your internet-facing exposure.

Halo Threat Intelligence helps prioritize remediation with Halo Surface Signal and H/A/L/O context. Start exposure validation with a free external attack surface trial.

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Frequently asked questions

What is Dell Secure Connect Gateway Policy Manager?

It is an enterprise appliance that monitors and manages connections between a company's infrastructure and Dell's support services. It acts as a gateway to handle policy configurations and diagnostic data, meaning it is often positioned at the network edge to maintain necessary external communication.

What does CWE-307 mean for CVE-2026-76779?

This weakness, known as Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts, means the system fails to adequately limit how many times a user can try to log in. In this CVE, that failure allows an attacker to repeatedly submit authentication requests, which can ultimately bypass security controls and gain unauthorized, elevated access.

How does an attacker trigger this vulnerability?

An attacker triggers this by sending a high volume of authentication attempts to the target system. Because the software does not properly block or throttle these excessive requests, the protection mechanisms are eventually overwhelmed. Simply viewing or interacting with the interface without performing these repeated attempts will not trigger the bug.

Why should I care about this CVE if I use this gateway?

Halo Surface Signal identifies this gateway as typically deployed at the network edge to facilitate vendor connectivity, which makes it a likely target for remote, internet-facing attacks. Because the flaw allows unauthenticated access, any instance reachable from the internet or an untrusted network poses a high risk to your internal security.

What is the first step to address this risk?

Identify every instance of the Dell Secure Connect Gateway Policy Manager within your environment to determine if they are running a vulnerable version. Once you have an inventory, assess their network accessibility and coordinate with your infrastructure team to plan and apply the necessary security updates provided by the vendor.

References

www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-ca/000503592/dsa-2026-385-security-u…

Written by Nicholas Merritt

Nicholas Merritt is VP of Security Solutions at Halo Security. With more than 25 years across application security, vulnerability prioritization, and offensive security, he helps teams translate threat data into practical exposure validation and remediation focus. He authors Halo Threat Intelligence CVE advisories using Halo Surface Signal and H/A/L/O context to prioritize internet-facing risk.