Cisco Fixes High-Severity Webex, Security Camera Flaws

Cisco has issued patches for high-severity vulnerabilities plaguing its popular Webex video-conferencing system, its video surveillance IP cameras and its Identity Services Engine network administration product.

Overall, Cisco on Wednesday issued the three high-severity flaws along with 11 medium-severity vulnerabilities.

The most severe of these is a flaw (CVE-2020-3544) in Cisco’s Video Surveillance 8000 Series IP Cameras, which ranks 8.8 out of 10 on the CVSS scale.

“A vulnerability in the Cisco Discovery Protocol [CDP] implementation for Cisco Video Surveillance 8000 Series IP Cameras could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to execute arbitrary code on an affected device or cause the device to reload,” according to Cisco’s security advisory.

The CDP is a network-discovery tool that helps network administrators identify neighboring Cisco devices. The vulnerability is due to missing checks when an IP camera processes a CDP packet.

To exploit the flaw, an attacker does not need to be authenticated. However, the person must be in the same broadcast domain as the affected device — because CDP is a Layer 2 protocol, attackers must be Layer 2-adjacent.

“An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malicious [CDP] packet to an affected device,” according to Cisco. “A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute code on the affected IP camera or cause it to reload unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.”

The vulnerability affects cameras running a firmware release earlier than Release 1.0.9-5 that have the CDP enabled, said Cisco. Of note, Cisco Video Surveillance 8000 Series IP Cameras are no longer being sold as of July 24; however, vulnerability and security support does not end until July 24, 2023.

Webex Bug

Cisco also patched a high-severity flaw affecting its Webex platform. This issue is severe given the troves of workforces turning to video conferencing systems during the pandemic – however, it is significantly complex to exploit, as an attacker would need to be both authenticated (needing valid credentials on the Windows system) and local.

The vulnerability stems from the incorrect handling of directory paths at run time. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by placing a malicious DLL file in a specific location on the targeted system, which would then execute when the vulnerable application launches.

“A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code on the targeted system with the privileges of another user’s account,” according to Cisco.

The flaw (CVE-2020-3535) affects Cisco Webex Teams for Windows releases 3.0.13464.0 through 3.0.16040.0; it does not affect Webex Teams for Android, Mac or iPhone and iPad.

Identity Services Flaw

A final high-severity flaw (CVE-2020-3467)  exists in the web-based management interface of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), a tool that enables the creation and enforcement of security and access policies for endpoint devices connected to the company’s routers and switches. The flaw enables authenticated (with valid Read-Only Administrator credentials), remote attackers to modify parts of the configuration on an affected device.

The bug stems from an improper enforcement of role-based access control (RBAC) within the web-based management interface.

“An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted HTTP request to an affected device,” according to Cisco. “A successful exploit could allow the attacker to modify parts of the configuration. The modified configuration could either allow unauthorized devices onto the network or prevent authorized devices from accessing the network.”

Cisco said it is not aware of any public exploits for any of the three bugs

On October 14 at 2 PM ET Get the latest information on the rising threats to retail e-commerce security and how to stop them. Register today for this FREE Threatpost webinar, “Retail Security: Magecart and the Rise of e-Commerce Threats.” Magecart and other threat actors are riding the rising wave of online retail usage and racking up big numbers of consumer victims. Find out how websites can avoid becoming the next compromise as we go into the holiday season. Join us Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2-3 PM ET for this LIVE webinar.