CVE-2017-6755 in Prime Collaboration Provisioning Tool
Summary
by MITRE
A vulnerability in the web portal of the Cisco Prime Collaboration Provisioning (PCP) Tool could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to conduct a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack against a user of the web interface of an affected system. More Information: CSCvc90312. Known Affected Releases: 12.1.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/06/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2017-6755 represents a critical cross-site scripting flaw within the web portal interface of Cisco Prime Collaboration Provisioning version 12.1. This issue exposes the system to unauthenticated remote attackers who can exploit the weakness to inject malicious scripts into web pages viewed by legitimate users. The vulnerability specifically affects the web interface component of the PCP tool, which serves as the primary administrative gateway for managing collaboration infrastructure. The flaw stems from inadequate input validation and output encoding mechanisms within the web application's user interface, creating an avenue for attackers to manipulate the application's behavior through crafted malicious inputs.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability allows an attacker to inject malicious JavaScript code into the web application's response handling mechanisms. When a victim user accesses a compromised page, the injected script executes within the victim's browser context, potentially leading to session hijacking, credential theft, or arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability operates through the web portal's parameter handling, where user-supplied input is not properly sanitized before being rendered back to the user interface. This weakness enables attackers to craft malicious payloads that exploit the application's failure to validate and escape user-provided data, creating a persistent threat vector that can be leveraged for extended attack campaigns.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risks to organizations utilizing Cisco Prime Collaboration Provisioning for their communication infrastructure management. The unauthenticated nature of the attack means that adversaries can exploit the flaw without requiring valid credentials, making it particularly dangerous for environments where the web portal is accessible from untrusted networks. The potential impact extends beyond simple script execution, as successful exploitation could lead to complete compromise of the administrative interface, enabling attackers to modify configuration settings, access sensitive collaboration data, or establish persistent access points within the network. The vulnerability affects the core functionality of the provisioning tool, potentially disrupting critical communication services and creating opportunities for broader network infiltration.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including applying the latest security patches provided by Cisco, which address the input validation deficiencies in the web portal interface. Network segmentation and access controls should be enhanced to limit exposure of the vulnerable web interface to untrusted networks, while implementing proper web application firewall rules to detect and block malicious script injection attempts. Security monitoring should be enhanced to detect unusual patterns in web portal access and potential exploitation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-79 which categorizes cross-site scripting flaws as a primary concern in web application security, and maps to ATT&CK technique T1059.007 for scripting execution. Organizations should also consider implementing content security policies and regular security assessments to prevent similar vulnerabilities from emerging in other components of their collaboration infrastructure.