Key Points:
• Cisco’s Smart Licensing Utility (CSLU) has two critical vulnerabilities that should be patched as soon as possible according to the SANS Technology Institute.
• The vulnerabilities could allow attackers to gain administrator privileges or access sensitive data, and have been detected in "some exploit activity".
• The affected versions of CSLU are 2.0.0, 2.1.0, and 2.2.0, with version 2.3.0 being the patched version.
As a reporter, I am bringing you the latest news from the world of cybersecurity. This time, it’s a warning from the SANS Technology Institute regarding a critical vulnerability in Cisco’s Smart Licensing Utility (CSLU).
CSLU is a tool used to manage Cisco licenses in smaller, on-premises, and air-gapped networks, avoiding the complexity of the cloud-based Cisco Smart Licensing. However, it appears that this tool has fallen victim to two serious flaws, which could have severe consequences if left unpatched.
According to SANS, the vulnerabilities have already been detected in "some exploit activity", mere weeks after Cisco first made the flaws public in September. The first flaw, identified as CVE-2024-20439, allows attackers to gain administrator privileges via the app’s API, while the second, CVE-2024-20440, allows access to log files containing sensitive data.
The worst part? These vulnerabilities are so severe that they have been given an identical CVSS score of 9.8, making it a toss-up as to which is the worst. However, the good news is that Cisco has already released a patched version of CSLU, version 2.3.0, to fix these issues.
CSLU is a relatively new product, and one would expect it to be better secured. However, this is not the first time Cisco has been criticized for using hardcoded credentials in its products. In fact, similar issues have been discovered in Cisco Firepower Threat Defense, Emergency Responder, and Digital Network Architecture (DNA) Center.
As SANS’s Dean of Research, Johannes Ullrich, put it, "The first one [CVE-2024-20439] is one of the many backdoors Cisco likes to equip its products with." It’s clear that organizations running CSLU should prioritize patching these vulnerabilities as soon as possible to avoid falling victim to potential attacks.
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