Pierluigi Paganini July 09, 2021

Cisco addresses high severity privilege escalation vulnerabilities in Business Process Automation (BPA) and Web Security Appliance (WSA) that expose users to privilege escalation attacks.

Cisco released security patches for high severity vulnerabilities in Business Process Automation (BPA) and Web Security Appliance (WSA) that expose users to privilege escalation attacks.

The IT giant fixed two flaws (CVE-2021-1574, CVE-2021-1576) in Business Process Automation (BPA), an authenticated attacker could remotely exploit them to elevate their privileges to Administrator. Both issues resides in the web-based management interface of Business Process Automation (BPA), they received a CVSS score of 8.8. 

“Multiple vulnerabilities in the web-based management interface of Cisco Business Process Automation (BPA) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to elevate privileges to Administrator.” reads the advisory published by the company. “These vulnerabilities are due to improper authorization enforcement for specific features and for access to log files that contain confidential information. An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities either by submitting crafted HTTP messages to an affected system and performing unauthorized actions with the privileges of an administrator, or by retrieving sensitive data from the logs and using it to impersonate a legitimate privileged user. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to elevate privileges to Administrator.“

An authenticated attacker could exploit the CVE-2021-1574 to execute unauthorized commands, while the CVE-2021-1576 flaw could allow an authenticated attacker to access the logging subsystem of a vulnerable system and access sensitive data.

The company fixed these vulnerabilities in Cisco BPA with the release of version 3.1 and later.

Cisco said that there are no workarounds to mitigate these vulnerabilities.

The company also fixed a vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-1359, in the configuration management of Cisco AsyncOS for Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA). The flaw could allow an authenticated, remote attacker, to inject commands and gain root privileges.

“This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user-supplied XML input for the web interface. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by uploading crafted XML configuration files that contain scripting code to a vulnerable device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system and elevate privileges to root.” reads the advisory. “An attacker would need a valid user account with the rights to upload configuration files to exploit this vulnerability.”

The flaw received a CVSS score of 6.3, it affects virtual and hardware AsyncOS for WSA appliances, also in this case there are no workaround. AsyncOS for WSA versions 12.0.3-005 or 12.5.2 address the vulnerability.

Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) is not aware of any public announcements or attacks in the wild exploiting the above vulnerabilities.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, PrintNightmare)

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