CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-3158 — Cisco Smart Software Manager On-Prem security vulnerability

Critical CVSS 9.8

A vulnerability in the High Availability (HA) service of Cisco Smart Software Manager On-Prem could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to access a sensitive part of the system with a high-privileged account. The vulnerability is due to a system account that has a default and static password and is not under the control of the system administrator. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by using this default account to connect to the affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to obtain read and write access to system data, including the configuration of an affected device. The attacker would gain access to a sensitive portion of the system, but the attacker would not have full administrative rights to control the device.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.0)
Published
2020-02-19
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-798

Affected products

  • cisco / smart_software_manager_on-prem

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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