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Default Credentials Expose Cisco ENCS, CSP Appliances to Attacks

Cisco informed customers on Wednesday that it has patched a critical default credentials vulnerability affecting some configurations of its ENCS 5400-W series and CSP 5000-W series appliances.

Cisco informed customers on Wednesday that it has patched a critical default credentials vulnerability affecting some configurations of its ENCS 5400-W series and CSP 5000-W series appliances.

The Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) solution is designed to optimize traffic over an organization’s network. The Cisco Cloud Services Platform for WAAS (CSP-W) is a hardware platform designed for the deployment of datacenter network function virtualization (NFV), and the Cisco Enterprise Network Compute System (ENCS) is a hybrid platform for branch deployment and for hosting WAAS applications.

Internal security testing conducted by Cisco revealed that the virtual WAAS (vWAAS) with Enterprise NFV Infrastructure Software (NFVIS)-bundled images for ENCS 5400-W series and 5000-W series appliances includes a default, static password.

A remote, unauthenticated attacker could use this default account to log into the NFVIS command line interface (CLI) with administrator privileges.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-3446, can be exploited by an attacker who can connect to the targeted device’s NFVIS CLI. This can be achieved through the Ethernet management port for the CPU in the case of ENCS appliances, and through a port on the I350 PCIe Ethernet Adapter card on CSP appliances. These interfaces may be remotely accessible if a routed IP is configured, Cisco explained.

An attacker can also exploit the vulnerability if they can obtain access and valid credentials for the vWAAS CLI or the Cisco Integrated Management Controller (CIMC).

“Cisco has confirmed that this vulnerability does not affect standalone NFVIS running on Cisco ENCS 5000 Series and Cisco CSP 5000 Series devices, and it does not affect standalone vWAAS software or WAAS software running on Cisco Wide Area Virtualization Engine (WAVE) appliances,” the company noted in its advisory.

Cisco also informed customers on Wednesday of a high-severity vulnerability in Smart Software Manager (SSM) On-Prem that can be exploited by an authenticated attacker to escalate privileges.

The networking giant has also patched a high-severity issue in the Discovery Protocol implementation of Video Surveillance 8000 series IP cameras that could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause the device to enter a DoS condition.

The company also published advisories for many medium-severity vulnerabilities affecting Webex, Data Center Network Manager, Small Business switches, Vision Dynamic Signage Director, and several other products.

Cisco says it’s not aware of any attacks exploiting these vulnerabilities.

Related: Cisco Patches High Severity Vulnerabilities in Security Products

Related: Vulnerability in Cisco Firewalls Exploited Shortly After Disclosure

Related: Cisco Servers Hacked via Salt Vulnerabilities

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

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