Vulnerability · Published Mar 24, 2021 · Assigned by cisco

CVE-2021-1398Cisco IOS XE Software Arbitrary Code Execution Vulnerability

Medium 6.8

In plain English

A medium-severity security flaw in Cisco IOS XE Software from Cisco. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.4% (higher than 33% of all known vulnerabilities).

Severity (CVSS 3.1)6.8Medium

Exploit odds (30 days)0.4%top 66.7% of all CVEs

Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none

Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

A vulnerability in the boot logic of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker with level 15 privileges or an unauthenticated attacker with physical access to execute arbitrary code on the underlying Linux operating system of an affected device. This vulnerability is due to incorrect validations of specific function arguments that are passed to the boot script. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by tampering with a specific file, which an affected device would process during the initial boot process. On systems that are protected by the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) secure boot feature, a successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute unsigned code at boot time and bypass the image verification check in the secure boot process of the affected device.

Affected products (as reported)

Vendor	Product	Versions
Cisco	Cisco IOS XE Software	n/a

Weakness: CWE-489 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

20210324 Cisco IOS XE Software Arbitrary Code Execution Vulnerability vendor-advisory, x_refsource_CISCO