Maximum-severity Cisco vulnerability allows attackers to change admin passwords

Maximum-severity Cisco vulnerability allows attackers to change admin passwords

July 18, 2024 at 06:42AM

Cisco has released a patch for CVE-2024-20419, a critical vulnerability in Cisco Smart Software Manager (SSM) On-Prem. Attackers can change any user’s password, posing a significant threat to confidentiality and integrity. The bug affects SSM On-Prem and SSM Satellite. Organizations are advised to upgrade to unaffected versions and apply the patch promptly.

The meeting notes provide crucial information regarding a maximum-severity vulnerability in Cisco’s Smart Software Manager (SSM) On-Prem, tracked as CVE-2024-20419. The vulnerability allows unauthenticated remote attackers to change passwords, posing a significant threat to the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of affected systems.

The severity assessment indicates that the attack complexity is low, and the impact on the product’s integrity, availability, and confidentiality is high. The vulnerability is due to the improper implementation of the password-change process, and there are no workarounds available. It is critical for organizations using affected versions (8-202206 and earlier) to upgrade to version 8-202212 or, ideally, version 9, which is unaffected by the vulnerability.

The implications of the vulnerability are particularly concerning for industries such as financial institutions, utilities, service providers, and government organizations, where the affected product is commonly deployed. While there are no signs of exploitation in the wild at present, the urgency of applying the patches cannot be understated.

In addition to CVE-2024-20419, the meeting notes highlight another critical flaw addressed by Cisco, namely CVE-2024-20401 (9.8), impacting the Cisco Secure Email Gateway. The notes also mention the Blast RADIUS vulnerability, for which patches have not yet been released, and advised mitigations may degrade performance.

This summary serves as an initial overview of the meeting notes, providing essential details for further action and consideration.

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