CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2018-0238 — Cisco Unified Computing System Director security vulnerability

Critical CVSS 9.9

A vulnerability in the role-based resource checking functionality of the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) Director could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to view unauthorized information for any virtual machine in the UCS Director end-user portal and perform any permitted operations on any virtual machine. The permitted operations can be configured for the end user on the virtual machines with either of the following settings: The virtual machine is associated to a Virtual Data Center (VDC) that has an end user self-service policy attached to the VDC. The end user role has VM Management Actions settings configured under User Permissions. This is a global configuration, so all the virtual machines visible in the end-user portal will have the VM management actions available. The vulnerability is due to improper user authentication checks. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by logging in to the UCS Director with a modified username and valid password. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to gain visibility into and perform actions against all virtual machines in the UCS Director end-user portal of the affected system. This vulnerability affects Cisco Uni…

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.9 (3.0)
Published
2018-04-19
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-287

Affected products

  • cisco / unified_computing_system_director / 6.5(0.0)
  • cisco / unified_computing_system_director / 6.5(0.1)

Matched remediation archetype

Authentication bypass and missing authentication

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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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