Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller Custom Binary Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

A vulnerability in the build procedure for certain executable system files installed at boot time on Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) devices could allow an authenticated, local attacker to gain root-level privileges.

The vulnerability is due to a custom executable system file that was built to use relative search paths for libraries without properly validating the library to be loaded. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to the device and loading a malicious library that can escalate the privilege level. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to gain root-level privileges and take full control of the device. The attacker must have valid user credentials to log in to the device.

Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability. There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability.

This advisory is available at the following link:
https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20170816-apic2 [“https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20170816-apic2”]