Cisco Secure Boot Access Control access control

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability categorized as critical has been discovered in Cisco Secure Boot. The affected element is an unknown function of the component Access Control. The manipulation results in access control. This vulnerability is identified as CVE-2019-1649. The attack is only possible with local access. There is not any exploit available. This vulnerability is notable in history due to its background and the response it received. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Cisco Secure Boot (affected version unknown). It has been classified as critical. Affected is an unknown functionality of the component Access Control. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a access control vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-284. The product does not restrict or incorrectly restricts access to a resource from an unauthorized actor. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

A vulnerability in the logic that handles access control to one of the hardware components in Cisco's proprietary Secure Boot implementation could allow an authenticated, local attacker to write a modified firmware image to the component. This vulnerability affects multiple Cisco products that support hardware-based Secure Boot functionality. The vulnerability is due to an improper check on the area of code that manages on-premise updates to a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) part of the Secure Boot hardware implementation. An attacker with elevated privileges and access to the underlying operating system that is running on the affected device could exploit this vulnerability by writing a modified firmware image to the FPGA. A successful exploit could either cause the device to become unusable (and require a hardware replacement) or allow tampering with the Secure Boot verification process, which under some circumstances may allow the attacker to install and boot a malicious software image. An attacker will need to fulfill all the following conditions to attempt to exploit this vulnerability: Have privileged administrative access to the device. Be able to access the underlying operating system running on the device; this can be achieved either by using a supported, documented mechanism or by exploiting another vulnerability that would provide an attacker with such access. Develop or have access to a platform-specific exploit. An attacker attempting to exploit this vulnerability across multiple affected platforms would need to research each one of those platforms and then develop a platform-specific exploit. Although the research process could be reused across different platforms, an exploit developed for a given hardware platform is unlikely to work on a different hardware platform.

The bug was discovered 05/13/2019. The weakness was released 05/13/2019 as cisco-sa-20190513-secureboot as confirmed advisory (Website). The advisory is available at tools.cisco.com. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2019-1649 since 12/06/2018. Local access is required to approach this attack. The successful exploitation needs a authentication. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not available. The structure of the vulnerability defines a possible price range of USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/17/2023). This vulnerability is assigned to T1068 by the MITRE ATT&CK project. This vulnerability has a historic impact due to its background and reception.

The commercial vulnerability scanner Qualys is able to test this issue with plugin 316454 (Cisco ASA Secure Boot Hardware Tampering Vulnerability(cisco-sa-20190513-secureboot)).

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Vendor

• Cisco

Name

• Secure Boot

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.cisco.com/

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