Cisco IOS XE Software IOx Application Hosting Environment Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

A vulnerability in the Cisco IOx application hosting subsystem of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to elevate privileges to root on an affected device.

This vulnerability is due to insufficient restrictions on the hosted application. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by logging in to and then escaping the Cisco IOx application container. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system with root privileges.

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-iox-priv-escalate-Xg8zkyPk [“https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-iox-priv-escalate-Xg8zkyPk”]

This advisory is part of the March 2023 release of the Cisco IOS and IOS XE Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication. For a complete list of the advisories and links to them, see Cisco Event Response: March 2023 Semiannual Cisco IOS and IOS XE Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication [“https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/viewErp.x?alertId=ERP-74842”].