CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-1438 — Cisco Wide Area Application Services security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.5

A vulnerability in Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to gain access to sensitive information on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to improper input validation and authorization of specific commands that a user can execute within the CLI. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to an affected device and issuing a specific set of commands. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to read arbitrary files that they originally did not have permissions to access.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.1)
Published
2021-05-06
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-668

Affected products

  • cisco / wide_area_application_services

Matched remediation archetype

Path traversal, unsafe upload, and file handling

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Check exposure

  • Trace untrusted filenames, archive entries, URLs, and path segments into read, write, include, extraction, and upload operations.
  • Identify filesystem roots, mount permissions, symbolic-link behavior, archive handling, and whether uploaded content is web-accessible or executable.
  • Review canonicalization and containment checks across supported operating systems and storage backends.

Remediate safely

  • Generate server-side storage identifiers and resolve paths beneath a fixed root using filesystem-aware containment checks.
  • Reject absolute, parent-relative, alternate-separator, device, link, and archive entries that escape the intended root.
  • Store uploads outside executable or served paths, validate type and size, and use private atomic temporary files.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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