"Cisco Patches Critical Vulnerabilities in Industrial Network Director, Modeling Labs"
Cisco recently announced patches for critical vulnerabilities impacting its Industrial Network Director and Modeling Labs solutions. Designed for industrial network management, Industrial Network Director (IND) provides visibility into network and automation devices. Cisco released fixes for a critical-severity flaw in the web interface of IND that could be exploited remotely to execute commands on the underlying operating system. Tracked as CVE-2023-20036 (CVSS score of 9.9), the issue exists because input was not properly validated when uploading a device pack. An authenticated attacker could alter the upload request and execute commands with administrative privileges. Cisco IND version 1.11.3 resolves this vulnerability along with a medium-severity bug that could allow an attacker to read application data. This week, Cisco also released patches for a critical-severity flaw in the external authentication mechanism of Modeling Labs, an on-premises network simulation tool. Tracked as CVE-2023-20154 (CVSS score of 9.1), the issue is the result of improper handling of certain messages returned by the external authentication server. The security defect was patched with the release of Modeling Labs version 2.5.1. Cisco noted that an attacker could exploit this vulnerability by logging in to the web interface of an affected server. Under certain conditions, the authentication mechanism would be bypassed, and the attacker would be logged in as an administrator. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability would allow the attacker to access and modify simulations and user-created data. Cisco stated that to exploit this vulnerability, the attacker would need valid user credentials that are stored on the associated external authentication server. Recently the company also announced patches for high-severity vulnerabilities in StarOS software and the BroadWorks network server that could lead to privilege escalation and denial-of-service (DoS), respectively. Cisco warned that proof-of-concept (PoC) exploitation code targeting the StarOS software bug (which is tracked as CVE-2023-20046) has been publicly released. The tech giant says it is unaware of these vulnerabilities being exploited in attacks. However, customers are advised to apply the available fixes as soon as possible, as unpatched Cisco products are known to have been exploited in the wild.