cisco | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cisco has released security updates for two critical security flaws impacting its Smart Licensing Utility that could allow unauthenticated, remote attackers to elevate their privileges or access sensitive information. A brief description of the two vulnerabilities is below - CVE-2024-20439 (CVSS score: 9.8) - The presence of an undocumented static user credential for an administrative account that an attacker could exploit to log in to an affected system CVE-2024-20440 (CVSS score: 9.8) - A vulnerability arising due to an excessively verbose debug log file that an attacker could exploit to access such files by means of a crafted HTTP request and obtain credentials that can be used to access the API While these shortcomings are not dependent on each other for them to be successful, Cisco notes in its advisory that they "are not exploitable unless Cisco Smart Licensing Utility was started by a user and is actively running." The flaws, which were discovered during i

Details have emerged about a China-nexus threat group's exploitation of a recently disclosed, now-patched security flaw in Cisco switches as a zero-day to seize control of the appliances and evade detection. The activity, attributed to Velvet Ant, was observed early this year and involved the weaponization of CVE-2024-20399 (CVSS score: 6.0) to deliver bespoke malware and gain extensive control over the compromised system, facilitating both data exfiltration and persistent access. "The zero-day exploit allows an attacker with valid administrator credentials to the Switch management console to escape the NX-OS command line interface (CLI) and execute arbitrary commands on the Linux underlying operating system," cybersecurity company Sygnia said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Velvet Ant first caught the attention of researchers at the Israeli cybersecurity company in connection with a multi-year campaign that targeted an unnamed organization located in Eas

For years, securing a company's systems was synonymous with securing its "perimeter." There was what was safe "inside" and the unsafe outside world. We built sturdy firewalls and deployed sophisticated detection systems, confident that keeping the barbarians outside the walls kept our data and systems safe. The problem is that we no longer operate within the confines of physical on-prem installations and controlled networks. Data and applications now reside in distributed cloud environments and data centers, accessed by users and devices connecting from anywhere on the planet. The walls have crumbled, and the perimeter has dissolved, opening the door to a new battlefield: identity . Identity is at the center of what the industry has praised as the new gold standard of enterprise security: "zero trust." In this paradigm, explicit trust becomes mandatory for any interactions between systems, and no implicit trust shall subsist. Every access request, regardless of its origin,

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has disclosed that threat actors are abusing the legacy Cisco Smart Install ( SMI ) feature with the aim of accessing sensitive data. The agency said it has seen adversaries "acquire system configuration files by leveraging available protocols or software on devices, such as abusing the legacy Cisco Smart Install feature." It also said it continues to observe weak password types used on Cisco network devices, thereby exposing them to password-cracking attacks. Password types refer to algorithms that are used to secure a Cisco device's password within a system configuration file. Threat actors who are able to gain access to the device in this manner would be able to easily access system configuration files, facilitating a deeper compromise of the victim networks. "Organizations must ensure all passwords on network devices are stored using a sufficient level of protection," CISA said, adding it re

Cisco has released patches to address a maximum-severity security flaw impacting Smart Software Manager On-Prem (Cisco SSM On-Prem) that could enable a remote, unauthenticated attacker to change the password of any users, including those belonging to administrative users. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-20419 , carries a CVSS score of 10.0. "This vulnerability is due to improper implementation of the password-change process," the company said in an advisory. "An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted HTTP requests to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow an attacker to access the web UI or API with the privileges of the compromised user." The shortcoming affects Cisco SSM On-Prem versions 8-202206 and earlier. It has been fixed in version 8-202212. It's worth noting that version 9 is not susceptible to the flaw. Cisco said there are no workarounds that resolve the issue, and that it's not aware of any malicio

A new malware campaign leveraged two zero-day flaws in Cisco networking gear to deliver custom malware and facilitate covert data collection on target environments. Cisco Talos, which dubbed the activity  ArcaneDoor , attributed it as the handiwork of a previously undocumented sophisticated state-sponsored actor it tracks under the name UAT4356 (aka Storm-1849 by Microsoft). "UAT4356 deployed two backdoors as components of this campaign, 'Line Runner' and 'Line Dancer,' which were used collectively to conduct malicious actions on-target, which included configuration modification, reconnaissance, network traffic capture/exfiltration and potentially lateral movement," Talos  said . The intrusions, which were first detected and confirmed in early January 2024, entail the exploitation of  two vulnerabilities  - CVE-2024-20353  (CVSS score: 8.6) - Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance and Firepower Threat Defense Software Web Services Denial-of-Service Vulnerabi

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday  added  a now-patched security flaw impacting Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) software to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, following reports that it's being likely exploited in Akira ransomware attacks. The vulnerability in question is  CVE-2020-3259  (CVSS score: 7.5), a high-severity information disclosure issue that could allow an attacker to retrieve memory contents on an affected device. It was  patched  by Cisco as part of updates released in May 2020. Late last month, cybersecurity firm Truesec said it found evidence suggesting that it has been weaponized by Akira ransomware actors to compromise multiple susceptible Cisco Anyconnect SSL VPN appliances over the past year. "There is no publicly available exploit code for [...] CVE-2020-3259, meaning that a threat actor, such as Akira, exploiting that vulnerability would need to b

Cisco has released patches to address a critical security flaw impacting Unified Communications and Contact Center Solutions products that could permit an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on an affected device. Tracked as  CVE-2024-20253  (CVSS score: 9.9), the issue stems from improper processing of user-provided data that a threat actor could abuse to send a specially crafted message to a listening port of a susceptible appliance. "A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system with the privileges of the web services user," Cisco  said  in an advisory. "With access to the underlying operating system, the attacker could also establish root access on the affected device." Synacktiv security researcher Julien Egloff has been credited with discovering and reporting CVE-2024-20253. The following products are impacted by the flaw - Unified Communications Manager (versions 11

Cisco has released software updates to address a critical security flaw impacting Unity Connection that could permit an adversary to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying system. Tracked as  CVE-2024-20272  (CVSS score: 7.3), the vulnerability is an arbitrary file upload bug residing in the web-based management interface and is the result of a lack of authentication in a specific API and improper validation of user-supplied data. "An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by uploading arbitrary files to an affected system," Cisco  said  in an advisory released Wednesday. "A successful exploit could allow the attacker to store malicious files on the system, execute arbitrary commands on the operating system, and elevate privileges to root." The flaw impacts the following versions of Cisco Unity Connection. Version 15 is not vulnerable. 12.5 and earlier (Fixed in version 12.5.1.19017-4) 14 (Fixed in version 14.0.1.14006-5) Security researcher Maxim Suslov has been cre

The backdoor implanted on Cisco devices by exploiting a pair of zero-day flaws in IOS XE software has been modified by the threat actor so as to escape visibility via previous fingerprinting methods. "Investigated network traffic to a compromised device has shown that the threat actor has upgraded the implant to do an extra header check," NCC Group's Fox-IT team  said . "Thus, for a lot of devices, the implant is still active, but now only responds if the correct Authorization HTTP header is set." The attacks entail fashioning  CVE-2023-20198  (CVSS score: 10.0) and  CVE-2023-20273  (CVSS score: 7.2) into an exploit chain that grants the threat actor the ability to gain access to the devices, create a privileged account, and ultimately deploy a Lua-based implant on the devices. The development comes as Cisco began rolling out security updates to  address the issues , with more updates to come at an as-yet-undisclosed date. The exact identity of the threat

Cisco has warned of a new zero-day flaw in IOS XE that has been actively exploited by an unknown threat actor to deploy a  malicious Lua-based implant  on susceptible devices. Tracked as  CVE-2023-20273  (CVSS score: 7.2), the issue relates to a privilege escalation flaw in the web UI feature and is said to have been used alongside CVE-2023-20198 (CVSS score: 10.0) as part of an exploit chain. "The attacker first exploited CVE-2023-20198 to gain initial access and issued a privilege 15 command to create a local user and password combination," Cisco  said  in an updated advisory published Friday. "This allowed the user to log in with normal user access." "The attacker then exploited another component of the web UI feature, leveraging the new local user to elevate privilege to root and write the implant to the file system," a shortcoming that has been assigned the identifier CVE-2023-20273. A Cisco spokesperson told The Hacker News that a fix that cove

Cisco has warned of a critical, unpatched security flaw impacting IOS XE software that's under active exploitation in the wild. Rooted in the web UI feature, the zero-day vulnerability is tracked as  CVE-2023-20198  and has been assigned the maximum severity rating of 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. It's worth pointing out that the shortcoming only affects enterprise networking gear that have the web UI feature enabled and when it's exposed to the internet or to untrusted networks. "This vulnerability allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to create an account on an affected system with privilege  level 15 access ," Cisco  said  in a Monday advisory. "The attacker can then use that account to gain control of the affected system." The problem impacts both physical and virtual devices running Cisco IOS XE software that also have the HTTP or HTTPS server feature enabled. As a mitigation, it's recommended to disable the HTTP server feature on internet-facing systems. The network

Cisco has released updates to address a critical security flaw impacting Emergency Responder that allows unauthenticated, remote attackers to sign into susceptible systems using hard-coded credentials. The vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2023-20101  (CVSS score: 9.8), is due to the presence of static user credentials for the root account that the company said is usually reserved for use during development. "An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by using the account to log in to an affected system," Cisco  said  in an advisory. "A successful exploit could allow the attacker to log in to the affected system and execute arbitrary commands as the root user." The issue impacts Cisco Emergency Responder Release 12.5(1)SU4 and has been addressed in version 12.5(1)SU5. Other releases of the product are not impacted. The networking equipment major said it discovered the problem during internal security testing and that it's not aware of any malicious use of the vulnerability in the

Cisco is warning of attempted exploitation of a security flaw in its IOS Software and IOS XE Software that could permit an authenticated remote attacker to achieve remote code execution on affected systems. The medium-severity vulnerability is tracked as  CVE-2023-20109 , and has a CVSS score of 6.6. It impacts all versions of the software that have the GDOI or G-IKEv2 protocol enabled. The company  said  the shortcoming "could allow an authenticated, remote attacker who has administrative control of either a group member or a key server to execute arbitrary code on an affected device or cause the device to crash." It further noted that the issue is the result of insufficient validation of attributes in the Group Domain of Interpretation (GDOI) and G-IKEv2 protocols of the GET VPN feature and it could be weaponized by either compromising an installed key server or modifying the configuration of a group member to point to a key server that is controlled by the attacker.

Cisco has released security fixes to address multiple security flaws, including a critical bug, that could be exploited by a threat actor to take control of an affected system or cause a denial-of service (DoS) condition. The most severe of the issues is CVE-2023-20238, which has the maximum CVSS severity rating of 10.0. It's described as an authentication bypass flaw in the Cisco BroadWorks Application Delivery Platform and Cisco BroadWorks Xtended Services Platform. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability -- a weakness in the single sign-on (SSO) implementation and discovered during internal testing -- could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to forge the credentials required to access an affected system. "This vulnerability is due to the method used to validate SSO tokens," Cisco  said . "An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to the application with forged credentials. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to commit toll fraud or to e

Cisco has released updates to address a set of nine security flaws in its Small Business Series Switches that could be exploited by an unauthenticated, remote attacker to run arbitrary code or cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. "These vulnerabilities are due to improper validation of requests that are sent to the web interface," Cisco  said , crediting an unnamed external researcher for reporting the issues. Four of the nine vulnerabilities are rated 9.8 out of 10 on the CVSS scoring system, making them critical in nature. The nine flaws affect the following product lines - 250 Series Smart Switches (Fixed in firmware version 2.5.9.16) 350 Series Managed Switches (Fixed in firmware version 2.5.9.16) 350X Series Stackable Managed Switches (Fixed in firmware version 2.5.9.16) 550X Series Stackable Managed Switches (Fixed in firmware version 2.5.9.16) Business 250 Series Smart Switches (Fixed in firmware version 3.3.0.16) Business 350 Series Managed Switches (F

Cisco has warned of a critical security flaw in SPA112 2-Port Phone Adapters that it said could be exploited by a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on affected devices. The issue, tracked as  CVE-2023-20126 , is rated 9.8 out of a maximum of 10 on the CVSS scoring system. The company credited Catalpa of DBappSecurity for reporting the shortcoming. The  product in question  makes it possible to connect analog phones and fax machines to a VoIP service provider without requiring an upgrade. "This vulnerability is due to a missing authentication process within the firmware upgrade function," the company  said  in a bulletin. "An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by upgrading an affected device to a crafted version of firmware. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected device with full privileges." Despite the severity of the flaw, the networking equipment maker said it does not intend to release fixes

Cisco and VMware have released security updates to address critical security flaws in their products that could be exploited by malicious actors to execute arbitrary code on affected systems. The most severe of the vulnerabilities is a command injection flaw  in Cisco Industrial Network Director  (CVE-2023-20036, CVSS score: 9.9), which resides in the web UI component and arises as a result of improper input validation when  uploading a Device Pack . "A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM on the underlying operating system of an affected device," Cisco  said  in an advisory released on April 19, 2023. The networking equipment major also resolved a medium-severity file permissions vulnerability in the same product (CVE-2023-20039, CVSS score: 5.5) that an authenticated, local attacker could abuse to view sensitive information. Patches have been made available in  version 1.11.3 , with Cisco crediting an unnamed

U.K. and U.S. cybersecurity and intelligence agencies have  warned  of Russian nation-state actors exploiting now-patched flaws in networking equipment from Cisco to conduct reconnaissance and deploy malware against select targets. The  intrusions , per the authorities, took place in 2021 and targeted a small number of entities in Europe, U.S. government institutions, and about 250 Ukrainian victims. The activity has been attributed to a threat actor tracked as  APT28 , which is also known as Fancy Bear, Forest Blizzard (formerly Strontium), FROZENLAKE, and Sofacy, and is affiliated with the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). "APT28 has been known to access vulnerable routers by using default and weak SNMP community strings, and by exploiting CVE-2017-6742," the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said. CVE-2017-6742  (CVSS score: 8.8) is part of a set of remote code execution flaws that stem from a  buffer overflow condition  in the Simple Ne

Cisco has warned of two security vulnerabilities affecting end-of-life (EoL) Small Business RV016, RV042, RV042G, and RV082 routers that it said will not be fixed, even as it acknowledged the public availability of proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit. The  issues  are rooted in the router's web-based management interface, enabling a remote adversary to sidestep authentication or execute malicious commands on the underlying operating system. The most severe of the two is CVE-2023-20025 (CVSS score: 9.0), which is the result of improper validation of user input within incoming HTTP packets. A threat actor could exploit it remotely by sending a specially crafted HTTP request to vulnerable routers' web-based management interface to bypass authentication and obtain elevated permissions. The lack of adequate validation is also the reason behind the second flaw tracked as CVE-2023-20026 (CVSS score: 6.5), permitting an attacker with valid admin credentials to achieve root-level privi

Cisco has released a new security advisory warning of a high-severity flaw affecting IP Phone 7800 and 8800 Series firmware that could be potentially exploited by an unauthenticated attacker to cause remote code execution or a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. The networking equipment major said it's working on a patch to address the vulnerability, which is tracked as  CVE-2022-20968  (CVSS score: 8.1) and stems from a case of insufficient input validation of received Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) packets. CDP is a  proprietary   network-independent protocol  that is used for collecting information related to nearby, directly connected devices such as hardware, software, and device name, among others. It's enabled by default. "An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted Cisco Discovery Protocol traffic to an affected device," the company  said  in an alert published on December 8, 2022. "A successful exploit could allow the attacker to