• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

A Scattered Spider member gets 10 years in prison

 | 

FBI: Russia-linked group Static Tundra exploit old Cisco flaw for espionage

 | 

US CERT/CC warns of flaws in Workhorse Software accounting software used by hundreds of municipalities in Wisconsin

 | 

DOJ takes action against 22-year-old running RapperBot Botnet

 | 

Google fixed Chrome flaw found by Big Sleep AI

 | 

Pharmaceutical firm Inotiv discloses ransomware attack. Qilin group claims responsibility for the hack

 | 

A hacker tied to Yemen Cyber Army gets 20 months in prison

 | 

Exploit weaponizes SAP NetWeaver bugs for full system compromise

 | 

Allianz Life security breach impacted 1.1 million customers

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Trend Micro Apex One flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

AI for Cybersecurity: Building Trust in Your Workflows

 | 

Taiwan Web Infrastructure targeted by APT UAT-7237 with custom toolset

 | 

New NFC-Driven Android Trojan PhantomCard targets Brazilian bank customers

 | 

Cisco fixed maximum-severity security flaw in Secure Firewall Management Center

 | 

'Blue Locker' Ransomware Targeting Oil & Gas Sector in Pakistan

 | 

Hackers exploit Microsoft flaw to breach Canada ’s House of Commons

 | 

Norway confirms dam intrusion by Pro-Russian hackers

 | 

Zoom patches critical Windows flaw allowing privilege escalation

 | 

Manpower data breach impacted 144,180 individuals

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office Excel, and WinRAR flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Hacking
  • Cisco Smart Install Protocol misuse could expose critical infrastructure to attacks

Cisco Smart Install Protocol misuse could expose critical infrastructure to attacks

Pierluigi Paganini April 06, 2018

Cisco PSIRT has published a new security advisory for abuse of the Smart Install protocol, the IT giant has identified hundreds of thousands of exposed devices online.

Cisco is advising organizations that hackers could target its switches via the Smart Install protocol. The IT giant has identified hundreds of thousands of exposed devices and warned critical infrastructure using them of potential risks.

Smart Install is a legacy plug-and-play configuration and image-management feature that provides zero-touch deployment for new switches.

In February 2017, researchers from Cisco Talos observed a spike in Internet scans attempting to discover unprotected Cisco devices that had Smart Install feature enabled.

“Research has indicated that malicious actors may be leveraging detailed knowledge of the Smart Install Protocol to obtain copies of customer configurations from affected devices.” reported Cisco Talos last year.

“The attack leverages a known issue with the Smart Install protocol. Cisco PSIRT has published a security response to this activity. Abuse of the Smart Install protocol can lead to modification of the TFTP server setting, exfiltration of configuration files via TFTP, replacement of IOS image and potentially execution of IOS commands.”

The researchers also reported that attackers were using an open source tool to scan for affected systems, called the Smart Install Exploitation Tool (SIET),

Now Cisco PSIRT has published a new security advisory for abuse of the protocol.

“Cisco is aware of a significant increase in Internet scans attempting to detect devices where, after completing setup, the Smart Install feature remains enabled and without proper security controls. This could leave the involved devices susceptible to misuse of the feature. ” reads the new security advisory.

“Several researchers have reported on the use of Smart Install (SMI) protocol messages toward Smart Install clients, also known as integrated branch clients (IBC), allowing an unauthenticated, remote attacker to change the startup-config file and force a reload of the device, load a new IOS image on the device, and execute high-privilege CLI commands on switches running Cisco IOS and IOS XE Software.”

At the end of March, Cisco patched more than 30 vulnerabilities in its IOS software, including the CVE-2018-0171 flaw that affects the Smart Install feature of Cisco IOS Software and Cisco IOS XE Software. The flaw could be exploited by an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a reload of a vulnerable device or to execute arbitrary code on an affected device.

“The vulnerability is due to improper validation of packet data. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted Smart Install message to an affected device on TCP port 4786.” reads the security advisory published by Cisco.

Cisco experts revealed they had identified roughly 250,000 vulnerable Cisco devices with TCP port 4786 open. A recent scan performed by Cisco revealed 168,000 systems are exposed online.

CISCO Smart Install scans

Since Embedi has released technical details and proof-of-concept (PoC) code for the exploitation of the CVE-2018-0171 vulnerability, risk of attacks has dramatically increased.

At the time, there is no evidence that CVE-2018-0171 has been exploited in attacks.

Cisco published recommendations for preventing such kind of attacks and urged customers to disable the feature if not needed.

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – hacking, Cisco)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]


facebook linkedin twitter

CISCO CVE-2018-0171 Hacking Pierluigi Paganini Security Affairs

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini August 21, 2025
A Scattered Spider member gets 10 years in prison
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini August 21, 2025
FBI: Russia-linked group Static Tundra exploit old Cisco flaw for espionage
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    A Scattered Spider member gets 10 years in prison

    Cyber Crime / August 21, 2025

    FBI: Russia-linked group Static Tundra exploit old Cisco flaw for espionage

    Intelligence / August 21, 2025

    US CERT/CC warns of flaws in Workhorse Software accounting software used by hundreds of municipalities in Wisconsin

    Security / August 21, 2025

    DOJ takes action against 22-year-old running RapperBot Botnet

    Cyber Crime / August 20, 2025

    Google fixed Chrome flaw found by Big Sleep AI

    Security / August 20, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT