Review of Cisco equipment’s last vulnerabilities

It’s not a secret that Cisco is the leader in the market of effective network solutions. This fact imposes huge responsibility on the company. Enormous efforts are being made to provide safety of offered solutions, but nevertheless.......

We have written the short review of the last vulnerabilities which are detected in Cisco equipment. It describes periodicity of their revealing and levels of their threat.

There were found out 4 major vulnerabilities since March 2008.

First of them was detected in March, it allows remote intruder to implement a DoS attack to a target system. That vulnerability exists because of the error in checking of input data while packages are in processing. Hacker can transfer specially generated packages that will lead to a failure of system service. Exploitation of vulnerability demands that equipment should be configured on support of Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Virtual Private Networking (VPN) and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) sham-link.

This vulnerability extends to the following types of equipment: Cisco 7600 Series 12.x, Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series 12.x, Cisco IOS 12.x, Cisco IOS R12.x

Next one was detected in May of the same year. This vulnerability allows remote intruder to implement a DoS attack to a target system. It exists because of the error in SSH Server implementation. Hacker can generate fake access to memory or reboot equipment.

This vulnerability extends to the following types of equipment: Cisco IOS 12.x, Cisco IOS R12.x

Vulnerability which is detected in July, 2008, allows remote intruder to implement a free (random) code on a target system. It exists because of the error in checking of input data in FTP Server. Hacker can transfer specially generated data that will lead to execution of any code.

This vulnerability extends to the following types of equipment: Cisco IOS 12.3(18)

The last vulnerability was revealed in 2009.  It allows remote intruder to implement a DoS attack to a target system. It exists because of the error in Cisco VLAN Trunking Protocol implementation. Hacker can transfer specially generated VTP packages that will lead to a failure of system service.

This vulnerability extends to all types of Cisco equipment.

And some words about the newest vulnerabilities in 2009, which are with low levels of threat.

They allow remote intruder to implement a XSS attack.

1. The first vulnerability exists because of the insufficient input data processing in the "ping" command in Cisco IOS HTTP server. Remote hacker can, by means of specially generated request, execute free script code in victim’s browser in the context of vulnerable site security.

2. The second vulnerability exists because of the insufficient input data processing in some parameters in Cisco IOS HTTP server. Remote hacker can, by means of specially generated request, execute free script code in victim’s browser in the context of vulnerable site security.

There is another one vulnerability which allows hacker to implement a DoS attack.

It exists because of unknown error while TCP packages are in processing. Remote intruder can send specially generated TCP data stream to a control card and set it to nil. Successful exploitation of vulnerability allows hacker to damage synchronous data channels on all platforms, except Cisco ONS 15600, and to temporary block control functional.

This vulnerability extends to the following types of equipment: Cisco ONS 15310-CL Series, Cisco ONS 15327 Series, Cisco ONS 15454 MSPP, Cisco ONS 15454 MSTP, and Cisco ONS 15600 Series

The review resulted above testifies to small periodicity of revealing vulnerabilities. However, it should be noted, that level of threat is pretty high in each case.

Considering the fact that the Cisco equipment is being used in the business field on 99%, any trouble such as a work failure or a data loss may lead to really bad consequences.