A vulnerability in the CLI of Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software in multiple context mode could allow an authenticated, local attacker with administrative privileges in one context to copy files to or from another context, including configuration files. This vulnerability is due to improper access controls for Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) operations when the CiscoSSH stack is enabled. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to a non-admin context of the device and issuing crafted SCP copy commands in that non-admin context. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to read, create, or overwrite sensitive files that belong to another context, including the admin and system contexts. The attacker cannot directly impact the availability of services pertaining to other contexts. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have valid administrative credentials for a non-admin context. Note: An attacker cannot list or enumerate files from another context and would need to know the exact file path, which increases the complexity of a successful attack.
Weakness
While it is executing, the product sets the permissions of an object in a way that violates the intended permissions that have been specified by the user.
Potential Mitigations
- Compartmentalize the system to have “safe” areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area.
- Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.