Medium severity · published Mar 24, 2021
CVE-2021-1398
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…
6.8
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
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.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Physical
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 33% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
IX
IOS XE · Cisco
3.7.0bs; 3.7.0s; 3.7.0xas; 3.7.0xbs; 3.7.1as; 3.7.1s; +34 more · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-1398
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-1398
Vendor Advisory
https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-XE-ACE-75K3bRWe
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