CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-20171

Client-Side Enforcement of Server-Side Security

Published: May 18, 2023 | Modified: Nov 21, 2024
CVSS 3.x
6.5
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

Multiple vulnerabilities in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could allow an authenticated attacker to delete or read arbitrary files on the underlying operating system. To exploit these vulnerabilities, an attacker must have valid credentials on an affected device. For more information about these vulnerabilities, see the Details section of this advisory.

Weakness

The product is composed of a server that relies on the client to implement a mechanism that is intended to protect the server.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Identity_services_engine Cisco 3.1 (including) 3.1 (including)
Identity_services_engine Cisco 3.1-patch1 (including) 3.1-patch1 (including)
Identity_services_engine Cisco 3.1-patch3 (including) 3.1-patch3 (including)
Identity_services_engine Cisco 3.1-patch4 (including) 3.1-patch4 (including)
Identity_services_engine Cisco 3.1-patch5 (including) 3.1-patch5 (including)
Identity_services_engine Cisco 3.2 (including) 3.2 (including)
Identity_services_engine Cisco 3.2-patch1 (including) 3.2-patch1 (including)

Potential Mitigations

  • For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks entirely. Then, these modified values would be submitted to the server.
  • Even though client-side checks provide minimal benefits with respect to server-side security, they are still useful. First, they can support intrusion detection. If the server receives input that should have been rejected by the client, then it may be an indication of an attack. Second, client-side error-checking can provide helpful feedback to the user about the expectations for valid input. Third, there may be a reduction in server-side processing time for accidental input errors, although this is typically a small savings.

References