Cisco IOS XE up to 17.12.1w NETCONF incomplete blacklist

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Cisco IOS XE. It has been classified as critical. The affected element is an unknown function of the component NETCONF. This manipulation causes incomplete blacklist. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2024-20278. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. There is no exploit available. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in Cisco IOS XE. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown code block of the component NETCONF. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a incomplete blacklist vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-184. The product implements a protection mechanism that relies on a list of inputs (or properties of inputs) that are not allowed by policy or otherwise require other action to neutralize before additional processing takes place, but the list is incomplete, leading to resultant weaknesses. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

A vulnerability in the NETCONF feature of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to elevate privileges to root on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to improper validation of user-supplied input. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted input over NETCONF to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to elevate privileges from Administrator to root.

It is possible to read the advisory at sec.cloudapps.cisco.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2024-20278 since 11/08/2023. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be launched remotely. Additional levels of successful authentication are needed for exploitation. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 08/01/2025). The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1562.006 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Type

• Router Operating System

Vendor

• Cisco

Name

• IOS XE

Version

• 17.6.1
• 17.6.1a
• 17.6.1w
• 17.6.1x
• 17.6.1y
• 17.6.1z
• 17.6.1z1
• 17.6.2
• 17.6.3
• 17.6.3a
• 17.6.4
• 17.6.5
• 17.6.5a
• 17.6.6
• 17.6.6a
• 17.7.1
• 17.7.1a
• 17.7.1b
• 17.7.2
• 17.8.1
• 17.8.1a
• 17.9.1
• 17.9.1a
• 17.9.1w
• 17.9.1x
• 17.9.1x1
• 17.9.1y
• 17.9.1y1
• 17.9.2
• 17.9.2a
• 17.9.3
• 17.9.3a
• 17.9.4
• 17.9.4a
• 17.10.1
• 17.10.1a
• 17.10.1b
• 17.11.1
• 17.11.1a
• 17.11.99SW
• 17.12.1
• 17.12.1a
• 17.12.1w

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.cisco.com/

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