# CVE-2026-25600: Hard-coded Cryptographic Secret in Trac d.o.o. PDBM (Process Database Manager) 1.0.0.0 Enables Administrative Credential Decryption

> Trac d.o.o. PDBM (Process Database Manager) 1.0.0.0 embeds a static cryptographic secret in its executable (CWE-798) that decrypts the administrative credentials stored in its configuration file. A local attacker with high privileges can extract the secret and gain full administrative access to PDBM. Fixed in 2.0.0.0, available since 2020; no known exploits per the advisory.

- **Published:** 2026-11-04T04:52:13Z
- **Last reviewed:** 2026-11-04T04:52:13Z
- **Canonical:** https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-5210
- **Card image:** https://intel.threadlinqs.com/og/threat/TL-2026-5210.png
- **ID:** TL-2026-5210
- **Severity:** MEDIUM (CVSS 6.4)
- **Category:** VULNERABILITY
- **Status:** PATCHED
- **Detections:** 9 (1 shown free below) · **IOCs:** 7 (1 shown free below)
- **CVEs:** CVE-2026-25600

## Description

SI-CERT published an advisory on 2026-05-29 (CVE published in NVD on 2026-06-01) describing a credential exposure vulnerability in PDBM (Process Database Manager) from Trac d.o.o. The product embeds a hard-coded cryptographic secret directly within its executable. The secret is used by the application's internal encryption and decryption routines, including the mechanism that decrypts the credentials stored in the application's configuration file.

Because the secret is constant across installations, any attacker with sufficient local privileges can extract it from the binary, use it to decrypt the stored password, and authenticate as the user defined in the configuration file. That user is configured with administrative privileges, so the result is full access to PDBM's management interface and its underlying operational functions.

The CVSS 3.1 vector is AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H (6.4 MEDIUM): exploitation is local-only, requires high privileges and non-trivial conditions, but impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is high. The weakness is classified as CWE-798 (Use of Hard-coded Credentials). Affected: PDBM 1.0.0.0 (NVD: versions below 2.0.0.0). Fixed: PDBM 2.0.0.0, which uses hash-based authentication and has been available since 2020. The advisory states no public exploits were known at the time of publication, and the hunt review found no CISA KEV listing and no public PoC.

Coordinated disclosure timeline: initial report 2026-01-15, detailed technical information 2026-01-21, vendor notification 2026-02-03, advisory 2026-05-29. The finding is credited to Mijo Mišić, penetration tester at Combis d.o.o., Croatia. The only indicator published is the SHA-256 of the vulnerable executable. No threat actor is associated with this vulnerability and no network infrastructure is identified. Recommended actions: upgrade to 2.0.0.0, restrict access to the application environment and configuration files, and monitor and log unauthorized access attempts.

## MITRE ATT&CK

- T1552.001 Credentials In Files
- T1140 Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information
- T1078 Valid Accounts
- T1078 Valid Accounts
- T1005 Data from Local System

## Free detection (Splunk SPL, Microsoft KQL, Sigma)

**CVE-2026-25600 PDBM.exe Binary Inspected by Reverse-Engineering or Byte-Dump Tooling — Exploitation** (`TL-2026-5210-SPL-001`)

Detects Sysmon process creation where a command line references PDBM and the process is a binary-analysis, string-extraction or dump tool (strings, certutil -encodehex, procdump, Ghidra, x64dbg, dnSpy, ILSpy, de4dot, FLOSS) or a PowerShell byte-read primitive (Format-Hex, ReadAllBytes, AsByteStream, -Encoding Byte). This is the first step of CVE-2026-25600 (CWE-798): the static cryptographic secret embedded in PDBM.exe 1.0.0.0 is identical across installations and is recovered by reading the executable. Behaviour-first hunting lead derived from the described exploitation method; no in-the-wild sample is known.

- **Languages:** Splunk SPL, Microsoft KQL, Sigma
- **ATT&CK:** T1005, T1059.001, T1140, T1552.001
- **Data sources:** sysmon, windows_process_creation
- **Severity:** medium
- **Confidence:** high

### Splunk SPL

```spl
index=sysmon sourcetype="XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational" EventCode=1 CommandLine="*PDBM*" | where match(Image,"(?i)(strings|strings64|certutil|xxd|procdump|procdump64|ghidra|x64dbg|x32dbg|ollydbg|ida|ida64|dnspy|ilspy|dotpeek64|de4dot|floss|pestudio)[.]exe$") OR match(CommandLine,"(?i)(Format-Hex|ReadAllBytes|AsByteStream|-Encoding[ ]+Byte|encodehex)") | stats count min(_time) as first_seen max(_time) as last_seen values(CommandLine) as command_lines by host User Image ParentImage | convert ctime(first_seen) ctime(last_seen)
```

### Microsoft KQL

```kql
DeviceProcessEvents | where Timestamp > ago(24h) | where ProcessCommandLine has "PDBM" | where FileName in~ ("strings.exe", "strings64.exe", "certutil.exe", "xxd.exe", "procdump.exe", "procdump64.exe", "ghidra.exe", "x64dbg.exe", "x32dbg.exe", "ollydbg.exe", "ida.exe", "ida64.exe", "dnspy.exe", "ilspy.exe", "dotpeek64.exe", "de4dot.exe", "floss.exe", "pestudio.exe") or ProcessCommandLine matches regex @"(?i)(Format-Hex|ReadAllBytes|AsByteStream|-Encoding\s+Byte|encodehex)" | project Timestamp, DeviceName, AccountName, FileName, ProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine
```

### Sigma

```yaml
title: PDBM.exe Inspected by Binary Analysis or Byte-Dump Tooling (CVE-2026-25600)
id: 3f6b1c2e-8a41-4d7b-9c52-5e1a7d0b2a11
status: experimental
description: Detects binary-analysis, string-extraction or byte-read tooling targeting PDBM.exe, the first step of recovering the hard-coded cryptographic secret described in CVE-2026-25600 (CWE-798).
references:
    - https://www.cert.si/en/cve-2026-25600/
    - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-25600
author: AII-Detector — ThreadLinqs Intelligence
date: 2026-11-04
tags:
    - attack.credential_access
    - attack.t1552.001
    - attack.defense_evasion
    - attack.t1140
    - attack.collection
    - attack.t1005
    - attack.execution
    - attack.t1059.001
    - cve.2026.25600
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection_target:
        CommandLine|contains: 'PDBM'
    selection_tool_image:
        Image|endswith:
            - '\strings.exe'
            - '\strings64.exe'
            - '\certutil.exe'
            - '\xxd.exe'
            - '\procdump.exe'
            - '\procdump64.exe'
            - '\ghidra.exe'
            - '\x64dbg.exe'
            - '\x32dbg.exe'
            - '\ollydbg.exe'
            - '\ida.exe'
            - '\ida64.exe'
            - '\dnspy.exe'
            - '\ilspy.exe'
            - '\dotpeek64.exe'
            - '\de4dot.exe'
            - '\floss.exe'
            - '\pestudio.exe'
    selection_tool_cmd:
        CommandLine|contains:
            - 'Format-Hex'
            - 'ReadAllBytes'
            - 'AsByteStream'
            - 'Encoding Byte'
            - 'encodehex'
    condition: selection_target and 1 of selection_tool_*
falsepositives:
    - Vendor, QA or authorised penetration-test staff analysing PDBM.exe
    - Software-packaging or integrity-check scripts that hex-dump the executable
level: medium
```

**Known false positives:**

- Authorised penetration testers or vendor staff reverse-engineering PDBM.exe
- Packaging or integrity-check scripts that hex-dump or hash the PDBM executable

**Tuning notes:** Allowlist known analyst workstations and approved test accounts by host/User. Widen the tool list with local reversing tools. Pair with the SHA-256 hash detection (KQL-001) to scope alerts to hosts that actually run the vulnerable 1.0.0.0 build.

### 8 more detection rules (Splunk SPL, Microsoft KQL, Sigma), unlock with TL Creds

- CVE-2026-25600 Vulnerable PDBM 1.0.0.0 Executable Present by SHA-256 — Exploitation Exposure (locked: unlock with TL Creds)
- CVE-2026-25600 Command-Line Read or Copy of PDBM Configuration File — Post-Exploitation (locked: unlock with TL Creds)
- CVE-2026-25600 [indicator] Spawning Command Interpreters or LOLBins — Admin Interface Abuse (locked: unlock with TL Creds)
- CVE-2026-25600 PDBM Executable or Config Copied to User-Writable Staging Path — Exploitation (locked: unlock with TL Creds)
- CVE-2026-25600 PowerShell Decryption Routine Referencing PDBM Credentials — Post-Exploitation (locked: unlock with TL Creds)
- CVE-2026-25600 PDBM Configuration Modified by Non-PDBM Process — Administrative Credential Tampering (locked: unlock with TL Creds)
- CVE-2026-25600 PDBM Configuration File Read by Non-PDBM Process — Post-Exploitation (locked: unlock with TL Creds)
- CVE-2026-25600 [indicator] Launched by Previously Unseen Account — Valid Account Use (locked: unlock with TL Creds)

Sign up free to unlock the detection rules: https://threadlinqs.com/?modal=signup

## Sample indicators (1 of 7)

Defanged, TLP:CLEAR.

- File hash: `62901707602CB8822B7A84B1B361961C0C0562D24E6CDE4F4A39016ACC51F1CE`

Full set of 7 indicators unlocks with TL Creds: https://threadlinqs.com/tl-creds

## Sources

- [SI-CERT advisory: Credential Exposure Vulnerability in Trac PDBM (CVE-2026-25600)](https://www.cert.si/en/cve-2026-25600/)
- [NVD: CVE-2026-25600](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-25600)
- [CVE Record: CVE-2026-25600](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-25600)
- [Feedly CVE entry: CVE-2026-25600](https://feedly.com/cve/CVE-2026-25600)
- [Lutra Security Field Guide: CVE-2026-25600](https://fieldguide.lutrasecurity.com/CVE-2026-25600/)
- [Exploit-Intel: CVE-2026-25600](https://exploit-intel.com/vuln/CVE-2026-25600)
- [vuln.today: PDBM vulnerabilities](https://vuln.today/tag/pdbm)
- [MITRE CWE-798: Use of Hard-coded Credentials](https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/798.html)

## Full data

The other 8 detection rules (Splunk SPL / Microsoft KQL / Sigma) unlock with TL Creds; a free account includes daily creds: https://threadlinqs.com/?modal=signup
Indicator values unlock with TL Creds, at a lower price on Red and Purple; AI agents can query rules and IOCs through the Threadlinqs MCP server (Purple): https://intel.threadlinqs.com/mcp

Canonical: https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-5210