CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2018-15459 — Cisco Identity Services Engine security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.2

A vulnerability in the administrative web interface of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to gain additional privileges on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to improper controls on certain pages in the web interface. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to the device with an administrator account and sending a crafted HTTP request. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to create additional Admin accounts with different user roles. An attacker could then use these accounts to perform actions within their scope. The attacker would need valid Admin credentials for the device. This vulnerability cannot be exploited to add a Super Admin account.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.2 (3.0)
Published
2019-01-23
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-284

Affected products

  • cisco / identity_services_engine / 2.3(0.298)
  • cisco / identity_services_engine / 2.5(0.1)

Matched remediation archetype

Authorization bypass, IDOR, and cross-tenant access

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Check exposure

  • Map object and action authorization checks across API, UI, batch, import/export, and background-job paths.
  • Identify tenant, ownership, role, and policy boundaries for affected resources and administrative operations.
  • Use synthetic fixtures to compare intended access matrices without accessing another user's real data.

Remediate safely

  • Enforce server-side authorization at each resource access and state transition using the authenticated principal and trusted tenant context.
  • Scope data queries by tenant and ownership; treat client-supplied identifiers, roles, and policy claims as untrusted.
  • Add deny-by-default policy tests for horizontal and vertical access across every affected transport.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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