CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2018-0428 — Cisco Web Security Appliance security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.2

A vulnerability in the account management subsystem of Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA) could allow an authenticated, local attacker to elevate privileges to root. The attacker must authenticate with valid administrator credentials. The vulnerability is due to improper implementation of access controls. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to the device as a specific user to gain the information needed to elevate privileges to root in a separate login shell. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to escape the CLI subshell and execute system-level commands on the underlying operating system as root. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvj93548.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.2 (2.0)
Published
2018-08-15
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
hardware/firmware
Weaknesses
CWE-284, CWE-269

Affected products

  • cisco / web_security_appliance / 11.0.0-fcs-250
  • cisco / web_security_appliance / 11.5.0-fcs-000
  • cisco / web_security_appliance / wsa10.0.0-959
  • cisco / web_security_appliance / wsa10.5.0-fcs-000

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

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

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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