Cisco IOS/IOS XE Call Home Feature Crafted Certificate certificate validation

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Cisco IOS and IOS XE. This impacts an unknown function of the component Call Home Feature. Performing a manipulation as part of Crafted Certificate results in certificate validation. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2019-1757. The attack is possible to be carried out remotely. No exploit exists.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Cisco IOS and IOS XE (Router Operating System) (version now known). This affects some unknown processing of the component Call Home Feature. The manipulation as part of a Crafted Certificate leads to a certificate validation vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-295. The product does not validate, or incorrectly validates, a certificate. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

A vulnerability in the Cisco Smart Call Home feature of Cisco IOS and IOS XE Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to gain unauthorized read access to sensitive data using an invalid certificate. The vulnerability is due to insufficient certificate validation by the affected software. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by supplying a crafted certificate to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks to decrypt confidential information on user connections to the affected software.

The bug was discovered 03/27/2019. The weakness was disclosed 03/28/2019 as cisco-sa-20190327-call-home-ce as confirmed advisory (Website). The advisory is shared at tools.cisco.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2019-1757 since 12/06/2018. The exploitability is told to be difficult. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. No form of authentication is needed for exploitation. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 08/17/2023). MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1587.003 for this issue.

The vulnerability was handled as a non-public zero-day exploit for at least 1 days. During that time the estimated underground price was around $5k-$25k. The commercial vulnerability scanner Qualys is able to test this issue with plugin 316398 (Cisco IOS and IOS XE Software Smart Call Home Certificate Validation Vulnerability(cisco-sa-20190327-call-home-cert)).

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

The entry VDB-132541 is pretty similar. Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Router Operating System

Vendor

• Cisco

Name

• IOS
• IOS XE

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.cisco.com/

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Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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