Cisco IOS XE on Catalyst signature verification

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Cisco IOS XE on Catalyst. It has been classified as problematic. This affects an unknown function. The manipulation leads to signature verification. This vulnerability is listed as CVE-2022-20944. It is possible to launch the attack on the physical device. There is no available exploit. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Cisco IOS XE on Catalyst (Router Operating System) (unknown version). It has been rated as critical. This issue affects an unknown code block. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a signature verification vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-347. The product does not verify, or incorrectly verifies, the cryptographic signature for data. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

A vulnerability in the software image verification functionality of Cisco IOS XE Software for Cisco Catalyst 9200 Series Switches could allow an unauthenticated, physical attacker to execute unsigned code at system boot time. This vulnerability is due to an improper check in the code function that manages the verification of the digital signatures of system image files during the initial boot process. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by loading unsigned software on an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to boot a malicious software image or execute unsigned code and bypass the image verification check part of the boot process of the affected device. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker needs either unauthenticated physical access to the device or privileged access to the root shell on the device. Note: In Cisco IOS XE Software releases 16.11.1 and later, root shell access is protected by the Consent Token mechanism. However, an attacker with level-15 privileges could easily downgrade the Cisco IOS XE Software running on a device to a release where root shell access is more readily available.

The weakness was presented 10/11/2022 as cisco-sa-ios-xe-cat-verify-D4NEQA6q. It is possible to read the advisory at tools.cisco.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2022-20944 since 11/02/2021. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available.

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Type

• Router Operating System

Vendor

• Cisco

Name

• IOS XE

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.cisco.com/

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CPE 2.2info

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