A vulnerability in system file transfer functions of Cisco SD-WAN vManage Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to gain escalated privileges on the underlying operating system. The vulnerability is due to improper validation of path input to the system file transfer functions. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending requests that contain specially crafted path variables to the vulnerable system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to overwrite arbitrary files, allowing the attacker to modify the system in such a way that could allow the attacker to gain escalated privileges.Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability. There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability.
The product performs an operation at a privilege level that is higher than the minimum level required, which creates new weaknesses or amplifies the consequences of other weaknesses.
New weaknesses can be exposed because running with extra privileges, such as root or Administrator, can disable the normal security checks being performed by the operating system or surrounding environment. Other pre-existing weaknesses can turn into security vulnerabilities if they occur while operating at raised privileges. Privilege management functions can behave in some less-than-obvious ways, and they have different quirks on different platforms. These inconsistencies are particularly pronounced if you are transitioning from one non-root user to another. Signal handlers and spawned processes run at the privilege of the owning process, so if a process is running as root when a signal fires or a sub-process is executed, the signal handler or sub-process will operate with root privileges.