CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2017-6781 — Cisco Policy Suite security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.3

A vulnerability in the management of shell user accounts for Cisco Policy Suite (CPS) Software for CPS appliances could allow an authenticated, local attacker to gain elevated privileges on an affected system. The affected privilege level is not at the root level. The vulnerability is due to incorrect role-based access control (RBAC) for shell user accounts. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to an affected appliance and providing crafted user input via the CLI. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to acquire a higher privilege level than should have been granted. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must log in to the appliance with valid credentials. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCve37724. Known Affected Releases: 9.0.0, 9.1.0, 10.0.0, 11.0.0, 12.0.0.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.3 (3.0)
Published
2017-08-17
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-287

Affected products

  • cisco / policy_suite / 9.0.0
  • cisco / policy_suite / 9.1.0
  • cisco / policy_suite / 10.0.0
  • cisco / policy_suite / 11.0.0
  • cisco / policy_suite / 12.0.0

Matched remediation archetype

Authentication bypass and missing authentication

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map every affected endpoint and protocol path, including alternate ports, legacy routes, recovery flows, service accounts, and machine-to-machine access.
  • Confirm which deployments enable the affected authentication mode and whether the interface is reachable from untrusted networks.
  • Review session, token, credential, and proxy trust configuration without attempting account takeover.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and centralize fail-closed authentication before protected request handling.
  • Remove default or embedded credentials, rotate affected secrets and sessions, and bind authentication decisions to the intended audience and channel.
  • Add negative tests for alternate routes, malformed or absent credentials, recovery flows, and proxy-derived identity.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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