A vulnerability in Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software for Cisco Firepower 1000, 2100, 3100, and 4200 Series could allow an unauthenticated, local attacker to access an affected system using static credentials. This vulnerability is due to the presence of static accounts with hard-coded passwords on an affected system. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by logging in to the CLI of an affected device with these credentials. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to access the affected system and retrieve sensitive information, perform limited troubleshooting actions, modify some configuration options, or render the device unable to boot to the operating system, requiring a reimage of the device.
The product contains a hard-coded password, which it uses for its own inbound authentication or for outbound communication to external components.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.1.0 (including) | 7.1.0 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.1.0.1 (including) | 7.1.0.1 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.1.0.2 (including) | 7.1.0.2 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.1.0.3 (including) | 7.1.0.3 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.0 (including) | 7.2.0 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.0.1 (including) | 7.2.0.1 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.1 (including) | 7.2.1 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.2 (including) | 7.2.2 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.3 (including) | 7.2.3 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.4 (including) | 7.2.4 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.4.1 (including) | 7.2.4.1 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.5 (including) | 7.2.5 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.5.1 (including) | 7.2.5.1 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.5.2 (including) | 7.2.5.2 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.6 (including) | 7.2.6 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.2.7 (including) | 7.2.7 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.3.0 (including) | 7.3.0 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.3.1 (including) | 7.3.1 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.3.1.1 (including) | 7.3.1.1 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.3.1.2 (including) | 7.3.1.2 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.4.0 (including) | 7.4.0 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.4.1 (including) | 7.4.1 (including) |
| Firepower_threat_defense | Cisco | 7.4.1.1 (including) | 7.4.1.1 (including) |
A hard-coded password typically leads to a significant authentication failure that can be difficult for the system administrator to detect. Once detected, it can be difficult to fix, so the administrator may be forced into disabling the product entirely. There are two main variations:
In the Inbound variant, a default administration account is created, and a simple password is hard-coded into the product and associated with that account. This hard-coded password is the same for each installation of the product, and it usually cannot be changed or disabled by system administrators without manually modifying the program, or otherwise patching the product. If the password is ever discovered or published (a common occurrence on the Internet), then anybody with knowledge of this password can access the product. Finally, since all installations of the product will have the same password, even across different organizations, this enables massive attacks such as worms to take place. The Outbound variant applies to front-end systems that authenticate with a back-end service. The back-end service may require a fixed password which can be easily discovered. The programmer may simply hard-code those back-end credentials into the front-end product. Any user of that program may be able to extract the password. Client-side systems with hard-coded passwords pose even more of a threat, since the extraction of a password from a binary is usually very simple.