CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-20230 — Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.4

A vulnerability in the restricted security domain implementation of Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to read, modify, or delete non-tenant policies (for example, access policies) created by users associated with a different security domain on an affected system. This vulnerability is due to improper access control when restricted security domains are used to implement multi-tenancy for policies outside the tenant boundaries. An attacker with a valid user account associated with a restricted security domain could exploit this vulnerability. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to read, modify, or delete policies created by users associated with a different security domain. Exploitation is not possible for policies under tenants that an attacker has no authorization to access.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.4 (3.1)
Published
2023-08-23
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-284, CWE-732

Affected products

  • cisco / application_policy_infrastructure_controller

Showing 1 representative product identities from 2 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

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

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.