Several Cisco cable modems and wireless residential gateways are plagued by a vulnerability that can be exploited for remote code execution, the company said on Wednesday.
According to Cisco, a buffer overflow flaw affecting the Web server embedded into the devices can be leveraged by a remote, unauthenticated attacker to inject arbitrary commands and execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges.
The vulnerability, which exists regardless if the device is configured in Gateway or Router mode, was reported to Cisco by Chris Watts of Tech Analysis, and has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2014-3306. The company said that it is not aware of any attacks in the wild which this flaw has been leveraged.
“The vulnerability is due to incorrect input validation for HTTP requests. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted HTTP request to the affected device. Successful exploitation could allow the attacker to crash the web server and execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges,” Cisco explained in its advisory.
The affected products are:
• Cisco DPC3212 VoIP Cable Modem
• Cisco EPC3212 VoIP Cable Modem
• Cisco Model DPC3010 DOCSIS 3.0 8×4 Cable Modem
• Cisco Model EPC3010 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem
• Cisco DPC3825 8×4 DOCSIS 3.0 Wireless Residential Gateway
• Cisco EPC3825 8×4 DOCSIS 3.0 Wireless Residential Gateway
• Cisco Model DPC3925 8×4 DOCSIS 3.0 with Wireless Residential Gateway with EDVA
• Cisco Model DPQ3925 8×4 DOCSIS 3.0 Wireless Residential Gateway with EDVA
• Cisco Model EPC3925 8×4 DOCSIS 3.0 with Wireless Residential Gateway with EDVA
Software updates that fix the vulnerability have been made available to service providers.
Cisco says there aren’t any workaround for this flaw.
Over the past months, Cisco has addressed security holes in several of its products, including the enterprise call and session management platform Cisco Unified CDM, the Cisco WebEx Players used by businesses for recording and playing back meeting recordings, and the Cisco AsyncOS operating system that’s used for some of the company’s security appliances.